The main theme of Goddess symbolism is the mystery of birth and death and the renewal of life, not only human but all life on earth and, indeed, in the whole cosmos. Symbols and images cluster around the parthenogenetic (self-generating) Goddess and her basic functions as Giver of Life, Wielder of Death and Regeneratrix, and around the Earth Mother, the Fertility Goddess, young and old, rising and dying with plant life. She was the single source of all life who took her energy from the springs and wells, from the sun, moon and moist earth. This symbolic system represents cyclical, not linear, mythical time. In art, this is manifested by the signs of dynamic motion: whirling and twisting spirals, winding and coiling snakes, circles, crescents, hems, sprouting seeds and shoots.

Celebration of life is the leading motif in Old European ideology and art. There is no stagnation; life energy is constantly moving as a serpent, spiral or whirl. Recall the richly painted vases of (these) cultures and sense the moving, turning, rising, splitting and growing energy they portray, the splendid combination of colors with ochre red, the color of life, predominating. Life columns, upward winding snakes, leafy trees, bees, and butterflies rising from tombs, caves, crevices, or the Goddess's powerful uterus. One form dissolves into another. The transformation of human to animal, snake to tree, uterus to fish, frog, hedgehog, bucranium to butterfly, was a perception of the re-emergence of life energy in another form.

This is not to say that death was neglected. In art, it is impressively manifested in the nakedness of bone, howling hounds, screeching owls, swooping vultures, and dangerous boars....the deep perception of the periodicity of nature based on the cycles of the moon and the female body led to the creation of a strong belief in the immediate regeneration of life at the crisis of death. There was no simple death, only death and regeneration. And this was the key to the hymn of life reflected in this art. Sacred images and symbols, goddesses and gods, their birds and animals, mysterious snakes, batrachians, and insects, were more real than actual daily events. They reveal to us the ultimate context in which Old Europeans lived. These symbols remain the only real access to this invigorating, earth-centered, life reverencing worldview, since we are now far removed from the society that created this imagery.

The Goddess in all her manifestations was a symbol of the unity of all life in Nature. Her power was in water and stone, in tomb and cave, in animals and birds, snakes and fish, hills, trees and flowers. Hence the holistic and mythopoeic perception of the sacredness and mystery of all there is on Earth. This culture took keen delight in the natural wonders of this world. Its people did not produce lethal weapons or build forts in inaccessible places, as their successors (the Indo-Europeans) did. Instead, they built magnificent tomb shrines and temples, comfortable houses in mod- erately sized villages, and created superb pottery and sculptures. This was a long lasting period of remarkable creativity and stability, an age free of strife.

The parthenogenetic Goddess has been the most persistent feature of the archaeological record of the ancient world. In Europe she ruled throughout the Paleolithic and Neolithic, and in Mediterranean Europe throughout most of the Bronze Age. The next stage, that of the pastoral and patriarchal warrior gods, who either supplanted or assimilated the matristic pantheon of goddesses and gods, represents an intermediary stage before Christianity and the spread of the philosophical rejection of this world. A prejudice against this worldliness developed and with it the rejection of the Goddess and all she stood for.

The Goddess gradually retreated into the depths of the forests or onto mountain tops, where she remains to this day in beliefs and fairy stories. Human alienation from the vital roots of earthly life ensued, the results of which are clear in our contemporary society. But the cycles never stop turning, and now we find the Goddess re-emerging from the forests and the moun; tains, bringing us hope for the future, returning us to our most ancient human roots.

From the Foreword by Joseph Campbell:
In contrast to the mythologies of the cattle-herding Indo-European tribes that, wave upon wave, From the fourth millenium B.C. overran the territories of Old Europe and whose male-dominated pantheons reflected the social ideals,laws, and political aims. .. the iconography of the Great Goddess arose in reflection and veneration of the laws of Nature. Gimbutas' lexicon of the pictorial script (shows) that primordial attempt on humanity's part to understand and live in harmony with the beauty and wonder of Creation. The message here is of an actual age of harmony and peace m accord with the creative energies of nature which... anteceded the five thousand (years) of what James Joyce has termed the "nighmare" (of contending tribal and national interests) from which it is now certainly time for this planet to wake.

From The Language of the Goddess, by Marij a Gimbutas. Copyright -1989 by Marija Gimbutas. Used with permission from Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc., San Francisco.