Serpent-Holder, Kundalini & OphiuchusSerpens Cauda (Tail of Serpent) & Serpens Caput (Head of Serpent) A Constellation of Immense Significance Used with permission by Lana Rings. This constellation at one time the night sky representation of the Minoan Snake-Goddess? Who was She, and why was She so important? The Serpent Holder is actually two constellations: 1) the Serpent-Holder itself surrounded on both sides by 2) the Serpent (whose head is to the left of the Serpent Holder and is called Serpens Caput, and whose tail is to the right of the Serpent Holder, Serpens Cauda). Originally, however, the two constellations were conceived of as a single unit. Allen says, “Of the four stellar Snakes this preeminently is the Serpent, its stars originally being combined with those of Ophiuchus, ... but it now is catalogued separately, and occasionally divided into Caput and Cauda on either side of the Serpent-holder.” (374). The Serpent-Holder constellation is one of the largest, if not the most vast one, in the night sky. Perhaps it was one of the most important. If one finds it in the sky, the Serpent-Holder looks overwhelming. A further key to its importance may be its position in the night sky, for it looks as though it could be part of the zodiac. As stated elsewhere, the zodiac has been considered important, because the sun and planets (seem to) travel through the constellations of the zodiac, and knowledge of when certain constellations would appear on the horizon at specific times of the year provided a "calendar" by which agricultural peoples could determine planting, harvesting, etc. In addition, and related to this fact, watching the sky was, in an earlier form, an important religion among certain peoples in prehistory, concerned with the zodiacal constellations, as well as the sun, planets, and moon which (from earth seem to) travel through them. Present-day astrology is a remnant of just such religions. As Rey says, "An odd thing about the Serpent-Holder is that it reaches into the zodiac, yet is not by tradition counted among the zodiacal figures, possibly because there would then be 13 constellations instead of 12" (52). This information is extremely interesting, especially because if one looks at the ecliptic, the imaginary line through which the zodiac figures go, one finds that Aries the Ram (which is part of the zodiac) does not have even one star reaching across that line, whereas the Serpent-Holder's leg very definitely does. Might the Serpent-Holder not have been a "member" of the zodiac at one time? And why would 13 constellations have been so bad? (Twelve constellations, or twelve zodiac signs, represent the twelve-month calendar, but the twelve-month calendar is not set in stone.) There are other things to consider as well about this whole problem. At one time Libra, the Scales, and Scorpio, the Scorpion, were part of one constellation, so if the Serpent Holder was in the zodiac at that time, there could still have been twelve constellations comprising the zodiac. The number 13 is also a possible clue. It is often an unlucky number in Christian cultures, because it had been a lucky number in pre-Christian cultures. Thus, if the Serpent-Holder had been a thirteenth constellation, it may not have been a perceptual problem for the people. The number 13 probably goes far back into prehistory as a lucky number, for the moon was perceived to cycle thirteen times in a lunar year, and the lunar calendar was probably the very first calendar perceived by human beings, the solar calendar being perceived later. (For example, it took less time to see the cycles of the moon than to see the cycles of the sun, for the moon waxes, grows full, wanes, and disappears once every 28 days, approximately, and the sun makes its rounds of four seasons once a year [although those seasons do not exist at the equator or north and south poles].) The constellation, just like all the other ancient constellations, has had a long and varied heritage. The Chinese had names for various groupings of its stars, as did the Arabs, the Greeks, and the Euphrateans (the latter's habitation corresponding geographically to present-day Iraq). Among many of the names that have been assigned to this constellation, or to groups of stars within and around it, the following are included (all information taken from Allen, 297-303, 374-376). Each Serpent Bearer or Serpent-Holder has a corresponding Serpent constellation. ~ Draco Lesbius Asklepios (Greek), or Aesculapius (Roman), a healer born of god and woman, "with whose worship serpents were always associated as symbols of prudence, renovation, wisdom, and the power of discovering healing herbs" ~ Serpens Herculeus, Serpent of Hercules (the one he slew [actually, he slew two] as a baby, when Hera sent them to kill him) Serpentis Lator (Serpent-Holder) ~ Serpens Lernaeus, Lernean Serpent Serpent-charmer of the Psylli of Libya ("noted for their skill in curing the bites of poisonous serpents" [298]) ~ Serpens Laocoön, Laocoön's Serpent Caecius, "the Blinding One, slain by Hercules" (299) ~ Arabic Al Hayyah, the Snake (influenced by the Greeks; before that: Al Raudah, the Pasture, with sheep). Laocoön who was overpowered by a serpent ~ Stars within the constellations representing territories within China Phorbas, "who freed Rhodes from snakes" (299) Jason "pursuing the golden-fleeced Aries" (299) Nu-tsir-da, Euphratean Image of the Serpent (the two constellations combined). Hygeia, as we know, was "Health," the daughter of Aesculapius. She, like Aesculapius, is shown in statues with the snake and the egg. Except for the difference in sex, their statues are quite similar. Hygeia had not always been the daughter of Aesculapius. According to Barbara Walker, Hygeia was one of two female beings forming a unity, the other being Panacea, "All-healer." In earlier myths these two women were the "divine daughters of Mother Rhea Chronis at her Pelasgian sanctuary of Titans" (766). (Note the importance of Aesculapius in Pelasgian country.) According to Walker the two may "have been personifications of the Great Mother's breasts, source of the Milk of Kindness and the balm of healing" (766). She goes on to say that Egyptians thought the cure for almost all sickness was "'the milk of a woman who has given birth to a child,'" a quite interesting concept, since it has been scientifically shown in this century that a mother's milk provides a newborn infant with needed antibodies which cow's milk does not. From this fact a myth may have come. Thus, originally, Hygeia and Panacea were not daughters of Aesculapius at all, but rather daughters of Mother Rhea Coronis, and it is interesting that the mother of Aesculapius was called Chronis, the very name of Aesculapius' mother in the later myths described above! Graves goes on to maintain, however, that Hygeia, and Chronis were all actually the same female deity, and all of them were actually Athena! Furthermore, Walker found that Rhea, the "Cretan name of the Aegean Universal Mother or Great Goddess," was, among other titles, none other than Coronis, "both a carrion crow (death-goddess) and a virgin mother (life-goddess) of the great hero of healing, Aesculapius" (856). Rhea was Goddess Time (who kills all) and also the Goddess Earth "who consumes what she brings forth" (856), a duty taken over by Chronos, "Father Time" in Hellenic Greek myth.
Learn more of Medusa the Triple Goddess
Thus, Athena may have at one time embodied all aspects of the life-giving, death-wielding Great Goddess Herself the Serpent-Holder. In a final linkage of names and personalities, it should be noted that the Earth Goddess was also called Hera, who, before she was relegated to being the estranged wife of Zeus, was actually part of the Triple Goddess called Hebe, Hera, Hecate (virgin, mother, crone), and furthermore, Hebe the daughter/virgin is none other than our very own Eve! So Eve was an aspect of the divinity, and is evidently related to the Goddess Athena, whose snakes were positive, as well as negative, forces! But by the time of the Eve myth it is easy to see that the snake was made into the evil perpetrator, with Eve as his agent, a great degeneration from her days as aspect of the Universal Goddess. An additional link of the Serpent-Holder constellation to Athena is formed through Anath, the Syrian warrior goddess similar to Athena, whom Walker says was the same as the Triple Goddess of Lybia, as was Athena. A visual link is formed when one looks upon the figure of Anath holding two snakes in her upraised hands. Again, although the Serpent surrounding the Serpent Holder constellation is supposed to be one snake consisting of two parts separated by the figure of the serpent holder, nevertheless it is not inconceivable that the serpent holder might be holding two snakes, a visual image that goes back in time for hundreds of years before Aesculapius. Furthermore, there is a variety of visual images of snake and female, some where she is holding one snake, others where she is holding three, and still others where she herself is part woman, part snake/serpent. It is perhaps Athena who was the great healer, and Aesculapius merely her agent on earth. Or, indeed, it may have been Athena who was the great healer herself. Could it be that the great serpent holder in the sky is not male, i.e., Aesculapius, but rather female, i.e., Athena? It is indeed possible that at an earlier time the constellation could have been the female deity. If one goes back to 1000 years before the Hellenic Athena to the Minoan Snake Goddess on the present-day Greek island of Crete (circa 1600 B.C.), one finds that this latter divinity and Her snake religion were the direct predecessors to Athena and Aesculapius: that Athena is the later version of the Snake Goddess or Serpent-Holder, while Aesculapius is that of the beneficent snake. The later Greek and Roman snake worship is based on conceptions of the Minoans, who considered the snake as a beneficent spirit looking after the welfare of the house, and an object of reverence. As a beneficial force it became [my italics] the attribute of Aesculapius, the healing divinity of the Greeks, through whom it still survives as the emblem of the medical profession (Davaras, 295). (This interpretation has been controversial). The Classical Greek deity who embodied the spirit and the attributes of the Minoan Snake Goddess was Athena, with her sacred snake living on the Acropolis of Athens (Davaras, 297). Thus, the Serpent-Holder of the later Athena and Aesculapius were originally the Minoan Snake Goddess and Her beneficent Snake spirits. If one looks at the combined Serpent and Serpent Holder constellations, one can see Her there, and as Allen states, originally the two constellations were perceived as one. It is not impossible to think that the Minoans may also have been watching the sky. There is evidence that the sky was being watched in the Cyclades, Greek islands not far from Crete. The peoples of the Fertile Crescent and Old Europe were probably looking at the sky for many years before the Greeks' interpretations of the constellations were created. Noted by the believers as the great healing female divinity, the Minoan Serpent-Holder, or even more ancient female deities, may have been part of a people's celestial "holy book." And perhaps one snake represented death and the other resurrection. There are additional ways in which Aesculapius the serpent holder, Eve the great deity, and the Serpent-Holder Goddess might be linked. According to Howey (1955, 89), "Garnier says that Aesculapius 'may more or less be identified' with the Babylonian god Hea, who was also symbolized by a serpent, and in support of this, he points out that 'Hea,' or 'Heya,' is the Arabic word for both 'life' and 'serpent,' and, he continues, 'the etymology of the name Aesculapius tends further to identify him with "Hea," for "Aish shkul ape" (which would be written "Aishkulape" and "Aesculapius" in Greek), means "the man-instructing serpent," from aish, "man," shkul, "to instruct," and ape or aphe, "serpent." Similarly "Hea," the serpent-god, is called "The teacher of Mankind, the Lord of Understanding," etc., and like Aesculapius, he is "The Life-Giver."'" Barbara Walker, indicates that many of the males were formerly females. It would make sense, because in Greece the figures holding snakes before the Greek period are females, whereas those in the Hellenic period are males. In her encyclopedia she says 'Eve' in Hebrew was "YHWH, yod-he-vau-he, ... from the Hebrew root HWH, meaning both 'life' and 'woman'--in Latin letters, E-V-E. With the addition of a Y (yod), it amounted to the Goddess's invocation of her own name as the Word of creation, a common idea in Egypt and other ancient lands" (288). She would thus be saying, "I, Eve," YHWH. So according to Walker the Hebrew YHWH means 'Eve,' 'life,' and 'woman.' According to Howey the Arabic means 'life' and 'serpent,' and in the name 'Aesculapius' are contained the concepts 'Serpent' and 'Teacher.' Further, under 'Serpent' Walker states: "Gnostic accounts of the Eden myth used the Aramaic pun identifying Eve, the Teacher, and the Serpent: Hawah, Mother of All Living; hawa, to instruct; and hewya, Serpent. Eve's name in Arabic still combines the idea of 'life' hayyat with the name of the serpent (Hayyat). Hippolytus viewed the serpent as a feminine Logos, 'the wise Word of Eve.'" Now, according to Howey Hea or Heya means 'life' and 'serpent' in Arabic, whereas Walker states that in Aramaic Hawah means 'Mother of All Living,' and Hewya means 'serpent.' (Note how close Hewya and Heya are.) She writes that hayyat means 'life' and 'serpent' in Arabic. So are Hea/Heya and hayyat the same word spelled differently? If Hea/Heya and hayyat are variations of the same idea, one can ascertain a direct link between Aesculapius and Eve, and between Eve and the serpent goddess. Instead of a god, which would then definitely show another form of proof for the pre-Greek serpent holder being the serpent Goddess herself, the Mother of All Living, probably THE deity of the time (in addition to her name as Hebe in the Hera Trinity). It would then show why the Serpent-Holder is in the zodiac and was taken out, and why it is was configured so large in the sky: Eve the Great Mother of All Living was the Great Goddess symbolized by the Serpent-Holder in the zodiacal sky and had to be vilified in the new religion, so she was removed from the zodiac. The Serpent-Holder Eve had been an enormous constellation in the sky, a symbol of the Great Mother Herself and Lady of the Beasts (see below). And she had been recognized everywhere: in Egypt, Crete, Babylon, and Canaan--as deities representing the same essential deity before the Greeks (before 1000 B.C.) and during and maybe even before Egyptian dynastic times (beginning earlier perhaps than 3000 B.C.).(Stone also notes that snakes were considered the embodiment of wisdom, perhaps because if one is bitten by, for example, a cobra and does not die, but becomes immune to the poison, then when bitten that person will hallucinate in a way similar to how one hallucinates on hallucinogenic drugs like LSD. She cites the case of a snake handler who did, and who felt he could "hear" much more clearly as well. Thus, the snake's embodiment of wisdom may have to do with the physical feeling of deeper perception, and perhaps insight through the bite of the snake. Perhaps for these reasons snakes were also kept at the Oracle of Delphi for the prophetesses. Arabic Hea/Heya ~ Life/Serpent/Teacher/Life Giver (Howey, 89) Hebrew IHWH ~ I-EVE, Life/Woman Aramaic Hawah ~ Mother of All Living Aramaic hawa ~ to instruct Aramaic hewya ~ Serpent Arabic hayyat ~ Eve, Life, Serpent Gnostic scriptures hawwa ~ Life Arabic Hiya ~ Serpent, Life Hea/Ea ~ Serpent Tiamat ~ Dea Mater, Demeter, Dea=Goddess, Mater=Mother Greek Hera ~ Goddess, Wife of greatest God Greek Hebe ~ Eve, Aspect of Hebe/Hera/Hecate Trinity What becomes clear is the positive nature of concepts associated with snake or serpent. Although the (later?) Bible portrays the snake as the embodiment of evil (although Moses put a serpent rod into the temple in Jerusalem!), as does modern U.S. (Christian and secular) culture, the serpent is here a symbol of what is positive: life itself and woman. Only with Christianity does the snake become absolutely bad. In all religions preceding Christianity, it was either good or had both positive and negative attributes, but never until Christianity was it perceived of as completely negative. So who, indeed, was Eve, if not the Great Goddess Herself now vilified? Who, indeed, was the Serpent, also now vilified, if not the great Serpent of the Great Goddess? And the Tree was the Tree of Life of the Great Goddess. (See Draco for more information about the Tree.) In the Adam and Eve myth, they all become suspect, the woman and serpent vilified, and the tree taboo. (See Stone for a complete account of how the worship of the Great Goddess [sic] was reversed by later conquering religions, especially pages 198-223.) Originally, the Goddess had been "the creator of human life. Yet the worshipers of Yahweh, perhaps one thousand years later, asserted that it was a male who initially created the world. It was the first claim to male kinship--maleness was primal" (Stone, 219).Stone quotes those who maintain that the invention of the Adam and Eve myth was not simply a difference of religious belief, but rather a political move with important economic, as well as psychological, consequences: The myth of Adam and Eve, in which male domination was explained and justified, informed women and men alike that male ownership and control of submissively obedient women was to be regarded as the divine and natural state of the human species. But in order to achieve their position, the priests of the male deity had been forced to convince themselves and to try to convince their congregations that sex, the very means of procreating new life, was immoral, the "original sin." Thus, in the attempt to institute a male kinship system, Judaism, and following it Christianity, developed as religions that regarded the process of conception as somewhat shameful or sinful. They evolved a code of philosophical and theological ideas that inherently espoused discomfort or guilt about being human beings--who do, at least at the present time, conceive new life by the act of sexual intercourse--whether it is considered immoral or not. This then was the unfortunate, unnatural and uncomfortable trap of its own making into which the patriarchal religion fell. Even today we may read in the Common Prayer Book of Westminster Abbey under the Solemnization of Matrimony, "Secondly it was ordained for a remedy against sin, and to avoid fornication; that such persons that have not the gift of continence might marry, and keep themselves undefiled members of Christ's body. "The picture takes form before us, each tiny piece falling into place. Without virginity for the unmarried female and strict sexual restraints upon married women, male ownership of name and property and male control of the divine right to the throne could not exist" (218). Going back even further, and also into Egypt of later times, as well as the more northern lands of which we have been speaking, the Goddess takes on a different, more ancient form. Here she is not a female figure holding snakes, but rather, she embodies both snake and female, for she has a snake head and a female body, or she is a snake, who is supposed to be female. From that time on, we realized, there was not just one similar statue of a female figure, but this snake-woman motif occurred in the Mediterranean over time and place and even into the Christian era, alongside the Jewish and Christian myths of woman and snake (Eve, Mary; in fact, Mary is the final version: woman turning on herself, for she is often depicted with her foot on the snake -- the later religions have won, at least for the time being!). Furthermore, we learned that the further back into prehistory one goes, the more female-and-snake concepts one finds, as depictions on pottery and as statues. Although sometimes also depicted as male, snakes have been heavily associated with female figures. The more we read and looked, the more we saw these motifs over and over again. Hacilar c. 6000 B.C.E. ~ anthropomorphic Snake Woman on vases Aegean islands c. 6000 B.C.E. ~ Woman/snake hybrid sculpture Early Crete c. 6000 B.C.E. ~ Female in yogic type posture with snakelike limbs Ur c. 4000 - 3000 B.C.E. ~ figure with the body of a woman, the head of a snake Sumer of 2500 B.C. ~ Woman in the middle, surrounded by snakes, one on each side, and by other animals and plants Snake woman or Goddess from Knossos, ~ Crete 1600 B.C.E. Egypt Isis and Neith, ~ the one with the cobra, the other as the cobra? Egypt 1250 B.C.E. ~ Ashtoreth and Goddess Hathor symbolism Anath 1200 B.C.E. Hebrew areas 1000 B.C.E.? to the present day, ~ Eve and the snake (story reversal) Egypt, 7th century B.C.E. ~ Ua Zit, Cobra Goddess Classical Greek times (500-200 B.C.E.) ~ Demeter with her grains and a snake on each side of her Classical Greek times (500-200 B.C.E.) ~ Athena with her snake Classical Greek times (500-200 B.C.E.) ~ Hera and her Garden of the Hesperides, where Ladon the snake guarded her sacred apple tree. First millennium C.E. to the present day, ~ Mary, Mother of God, with her foot on the snake (story reversal) While the Aesculapius legend and the Serpent Holder constellation legend come from the first millennium B.C. and into A.D., Anath is from 1200 B.C., and the snake goddess of Knossos from 1600 B.C. Furthermore, there are even more ancient visualizations of such a dual snake goddess, from Sumer of 2500 B.C., and she is a Goddess, not only of snakes, but of many animals and plants. This Goddess may be the same one of whom we are speaking, for a case will be made for the Serpent-Holder as Lady of the Beasts, the Beasts being many of the other signs of the zodiac, positive in pre-Greek times, destructive - and often destroyed by Heracles (Hercules) - in Hellenic times. So today She still exists -- demoted and in a reversal of the older stories. She is demoted because she is Mary, Mother of God, but no longer God herself and because she is Eve, demoted to a mortal who caused the fall of the world. Today people still believe in those reversals of the old order! They still believe that Eve existed, and that Mary existed, and they believe their stories. ... And woman has completely lost her place as God, for today the God of the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim faiths is male. (People say He's not male, but they always call Him male! Any depictions in the minds of people are certainly not female! And they probably are anthropomorphic, because God is talked about in anthropomorphic terms, having emotions, being called 'He', and making laws and rules -- very human acts, so it's hard to see Him as the vague notion of "spirit".) And these are the religions that come from the same areas of the Middle East as did the worship of female Gods, the worship that they successfully stamped out. Musings: Could the Serpent Holder the Lady of the Beasts (and the Plants)? How, then, must the Serpent Holder be related to the Lady of the Beasts? The connection is a visual one, for the Lady of the Beasts appears on a bowl in Khafaje, Sumer, 2500 B.C. She is at the center, the animals surrounding her on either side, or she also forms symmetry of the picture, for she stands similar to the way the Serpent Holder looks in the sky: arms out, with two snakes symmetrically facing her. What is different about this picture is that there are added features to it: a flower in the background and two lions flanking either side below the serpents. Furthermore, there are other animals and plants continuing around the bowl, as well as another depiction of her with what look like bulls of some kind. What makes me think that this deity might be related to the Minoan Snake Goddess and the Serpent-Holder include the following: the Goddess is standing in much the same position in 2500 B.C. in Sumer ("Iraq") as she is 900 years later in Crete as the Minoan Snake Goddess. Furthermore, she seems as if she could be the Serpent-Holder herself. Consider that many of the zodiacal constellations are of animals: ram, bull, crab, lion, scorpion, goat-fish, fishes, and consider that the serpent is part of the serpent holder constellation, reaching into the zodiac. It is possible that She could have been perceived of as the Holy Lady (equivalent to the Judeo-Christian male version "Holy Lord") surrounded by her animals in the sky as well as on the bowl. Certainly, there are non-animal constellations in the zodiac: Virgo the Virgin Corn Mother Demeter Ceres; Gemini the Twins who may have been children of the Goddess or aspects of the Goddess herself; Libra the Scales; Sagittarius the Archer, half man, half animal; Aquarius the Water Carrier, later a man, earlier the female deity who is in charge of the waters of life. Yet could the ancients have viewed a sky with the Lady of the Beasts in it? We do not know exactly how the ancients of 2500 B.C. viewed the whole night sky. They had determined some constellations; other important markers were stars or planets, and not groups of stars. However, it is possible that they were looking and watching and interpreting the stars as symbols of some of their beliefs; for around this time Draco was at the "hub of the universe," important to that constellation. Around this time, 2500 B.C., the sun would have been going through the Serpent-Holder around the time of the Autumnal Equinox, or somewhat before, during harvest, possibly important in the worldview of the time, for it would have symbolized the turning point, the change, from harvesting to death and dormancy, and the processes of renewal which were going on to prepare for rebirth in the spring. Of course, the sun would be passing through Scorpio during the last one-third of the constellation's month, thus symbolizing the dying aspect as well. But the Serpent-Holder is said by some to have held both: one snake death and one snake rebirth -- both aspects of the same life process, one constantly following the other. Women and snakes have been linked for millennia, even much earlier than Adam and Eve (where the linking was negative). Were these female images "Gods," "priestesses," were they related to life and death, or were they related to fertility and nourishment and menstruation? Let us assume for the moment that they were viewed as representations of some form of deity, as we begin looking at the Serpent-Holder in the sky. In those days the sky was their holy book, their "Bible," if you will. The sky was important, for it was a good calendar that told the agricultural peoples when to plant and when to harvest. Why? Well, the stars are at specific places in the sky, depending on the time of year. And the ancients knew how to "read the sky." "When you can see the Goddess Sotis just before sunup, the Nile will flood." This meant that when the star we now call Sirius (and the Egyptians called the Goddess Sotis) appears just before dawn, it is a certain time of the year, and the Nile will soon flood, because the Nile floods at that time of the year. This is the harbinger of that time and quite possibly of the new planting season.The sky was also the site of their religion, for they put their religious stories into the night constellations. Sotis was Isis, the Wisest of the Wise, the One before all others. And the constellations came from how they saw the position of the stars in relationship to each other. The serpent holder constellation is one of those ancient constellations. If you look at her in a star book (i.e., H. A. Rey's The Stars: A New Way to See Them) you'll note that she is a woman with a gown on and she is holding two snakes.(The original priests were women who wore gowns in imitation of the Goddess; thus, male priests today wear gowns, because they replaced that tradition with men, but kept the gowns.) Back to the constellation: I posit that She is the Snake Goddess of ancient times. In those times both the female divine and the Snake divine were holy. The female divine was holy, because She was the giver and taker of life (The Lady giveth, and The Lady taketh away). She was the original Mother of us all. The Snake divine was holy, because She (later He) represented reincarnation (the Snake sheds its skin and seems to be "reborn") and was also the death wielder (remember that many Snakes are poisonous). In addition, the Snake was wisdom personified. If you were bitten by a Snake (and survived), you had hallucinations which were interpreted as oracles from the Goddess. The Snake Goddess (or images of women and snakes, women as snakes) is very old. She is found in Ur, prehistoric Iraq in the fourth millennium B.C.E. -- somewhere between 4000 and 3000 B.C.E., or 5000 to 6000 years ago!! She doesn't yet look like the Snake Goddess in the sky, however, although the people were using the sky as their agricultural calendar then. But by 2500 B.C.E. in Sumer (Iraq) She does look like the Snake Goddess in the sky. By the time She reaches Crete, an island off the Greek mainland, She is very clearly that Snake Goddess in the sky (1600-1500 B.C.E.). In Ras Shamira, Syria (13th B.C.) She is still the Snake Goddess. In Canaan (Israel or Lebanon) in 1200 B.C.E; She wears the dress of the Goddess and the pointed hat of the Goddess as well. By the classical Greek era, however, She has been changed fairly drastically. She has become Athena, Preserver and Protector of Athens and the Creator of Civilization. She still has a Snake, but now it is by Her side on Her shield, and there is only one Snake. Furthermore, Athena has renounced Her mother and says She comes only from the Father (which is a biological impossibility, of course). By these times we also find Demeter with the Snakes as well (fifth century B.C.E.). In addition, Demeter holds the grain of the harvest in Her hands, indicating the relationship of harvest to death (Snake of death; see below) and food to renewed life (Snake of rebirth; see below). By the Christian era, the Snake Goddess is no longer female, and has become only half divine. She has become Asclepius, half-man, half-God, who is a Snake-Holder and healer. By 500 C.E. (Christian era), the last Goddess temple has been closed in the Western world. The Meaning of the Snake Goddess, as I have extrapolated itThe Snake Goddess is the mother of all living plants, animals, humans. She has the breasts of the nourisher. In one hand She holds the Snake of rebirth (creation), which sheds its skin. In the other hand She holds the Snake of death (destruction and Armageddon), because the Snake is often poisonous. The Snake of rebirth is also the Snake of wisdom, since the hallucinations caused what people thought was wisdom, insight, and prophecy.
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