Exile of the Wild Horse Goddess
One of the chief problems with contemporary Western cultures is that most have set themselves at odds with the wild, feminine mysteries of the Earth, the sacred dreaming of the Land. With respect to the light of Nature, we’ve set ourselves at an obfuscated and antagonistic angle—a position both tragic and self-perpetuated.
In indigenous Celtic traditions, the wild, feminine mysteries are expressed and accessed in a wondrous array of forms—all elegant, all complex, all carrying great wisdom. One of those expressions is the pan-Celtic Horse Goddess. In Welsh tradition, she is known as Rhiannon.
Like the guilty, anxious nursemaids who framed Rhiannon to protect themselves from blame after the stealing of her child as they slumbered, we’ve foolishly condemned the wild mystery (both within and all around us), resigning her—and ourselves—to a humiliating and ridiculous sentence of demeaning punishment.
“And the penance that was imposed upon her was this, that she should remain in that place of Narbeth until the end of seven years, and that she should sit every day near unto a horse block that was outside the gate. And that she should relate her story to all who should come there if they did not know it already; and that she should offer to carry guests and strangers, if they would permit her, upon her back into the palace. But it rarely happened that any would so permit.” (The Mabinogion, trans. Lady Charlotte Guest)
As the foolish nursemaids did (we could also make a symbolic connection here with the Gospel image of the bridesmaids who slumber when they should be watchful, letting the oil in their lamps run out), we have fallen asleep on the job of tending to the health and flourishing of Creation—which includes tending to our own place in the vast knotwork tapestry of interbeing.
We’ve exiled the wild Horse Goddess, who embodies our connection to the sacred Land.
Our collective course is obscured, and nothing is certain—: we are plagued by increasingly alarming data about the current and forthcoming effects of human-aided and/or human-facilitated climate change. Perhaps more than ever our relationship to the feminine divine within the landscape is of critical importance. Whether that relationship is one characterized by neglect, avoidance, irresponsibility and abuse, or by good sense, affection, and unity may well determine the fate of humanity—and many other species—on this planet.
