Ancient Mirrors of Womanhood:
A Reflection on the
Poetic Genius of Merlin Stone
by David B. Axelrod
A wealth of inspiration for your own creative work in fiction, dance, poetry, song, drama, painting, graphics.
(Merlin’s description of her book
on a promotional bookmark)
Merlin Stone is remembered for her thorough scholarship, which finally gave credence to the importance of the Goddess through the ages, but her second book, Ancient Mirrors of Womanhood, may well be a work of even greater genius. Much more information about the Goddess was needed to counter the tremendous weight of the patriarchy, which suppressed Goddess religions. In her second book, Merlin presented her facts in an even more accessible and enjoyable format.
The study of the Goddess, for a long time prior to Merlin and a few other feminist writers, was heavily biased. When Otto Rank wrote his study on The Myth of the Birth of the Hero (1909), he barely mentioned women as having a place in what was clearly a patriarchal mythos. Nor did Joseph Campbell give much attention to women who completed what he identified as an archetypal “hero cycle” in his own The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949). The list of major studies in mythology and comparative religion that did not acknowledge the true function of the Goddess is so long that it clearly demonstrates the importance of Merlin Stone’s work. In a patriarchal world dating back well before Thomas Bulfinch’s Stories of Gods and Heroes (1855), the “hero” reigns supreme. Where are the “heroines,” the stories of women of bravery, power, wisdom, and influence? It was absolutely necessary for Merlin to provide us with even more explication of our Goddess heritage.
In When God Was a Woman, Merlin presents her extensive research about the Goddess religion from a distinctly feminist point of view, culminating in her unraveling the myth of Adam and Eve. Anticipating the furor that might result from these pronouncements, Merlin was careful to provide extensive research and documentation of pre-patriarchal Goddess religions. Without Merlin’s attention to detail, we might not fully understand or even believe her conclusions about the conscious suppression of women in the Judeo-Christian myth of our creation. Merlin begins Ancient Mirrors with a quote from an early feminist author, Clara Colby: “Nothing would be more interesting in connection with the Woman’s Bible, than a comparative study of the accounts of creation held by people of different races and faiths” (from The Woman’s Bible, “Comments on Genesis,” 1895). Ancient Mirrors answers that prophetic call for more clarity.
However, the intention of Ancient Mirrors actually goes beyond the self-assigned mission of Merlin’s first book. Knowing that some readers might find the style of When God Was a Woman to be a challenge—a “scholarly” read—Merlin recast her wealth of knowledge into a much more accessible form when she wrote Ancient Mirrors. One could think of Ancient Mirrors as a sequel to Merlin’s first, ground-breaking book. Even Merlin said that she had so much information still left to impart after her first book, she felt she had to create another volume. But it would be a mistake to think that Ancient Mirrors is only a sequel. We often hear people praise the eloquence and poetry in the Songs of Solomon. We can also praise the “Songs of Stone.”
It would be useful to consider the arc of Merlin Stone’s life as a way to better understand the depth of her creative genius in creating Ancient Mirrors. If we all—rich and poor, educated and uneducated— seek some vision of the truth, one could make the case that all four central elements of Merlin’s life and training came together in her writing the book: work, study, inspiration, and even a touch of “madness.” The “ordinary” working person may toil on in relative obscurity, but that person also wants to believe life is meaningful. Of course, those who live a life of letters, pursuing degrees or devoted to the arts, seek the truth. Whether it is superstition or there is some science that explains it, it is often believed that mental illness allows an uncommon glimpse into a deeper realm. Certainly, a different brain thinks outside the box. Then there are those who devote themselves to religion or are truly inspired. In an unpublished novel, excerpts from which are included in Merlin Stone Remembered, Merlin identified the need that many people have to set out on a quest. And what greater quest is there than to find some eternal “Truth”? At intervals in her life, Merlin never shirked or diminished the importance of basic, hard work—even as a waitress or, when Lenny met her, as a switchboard operator in a Miami Beach hotel. Working people, as much as any of us, quest for meaning in their lives. As central to Merlin’s existence was her art and her studies—a life of the mind. She achieved not just her bachelor’s degree and a master of fine arts degree, but through her vigorous independent study, she was rightfully awarded an honorary doctorate. Her scholarship was certainly a quest to bring us all a central Truth.
However, for all Merlin’s scholarship, to this day, some people still attempt to dismiss her findings as “madness.” For her scholarship and writings, in another age, Merlin would have been burned at the stake, or certainly locked away as a lunatic. Of course, one person’s madwoman is another’s prophet, and it is here we should acknowledge the sheer inspiration exhibited by Merlin Stone in creating forty-seven poems for many of the nearly one hundred twenty goddesses she presents in Ancient Mirrors. Her work is the nexus of all Merlin’s experience as an artisan, a scholar, a “mad” risk-taker, and an inspired teacher of the Truth about the Goddess. In her Introduction, Merlin admits that she “reject[ed] the idea of a strictly academic presentation of the information that I had found.” She read the numerous scholarly studies where the “entire footnote biased emphasis” was on male-oriented figures. “Thus, I openly admit to my own bias in choosing to study only female images. … It was also clear to me that, if I was going to present material at all, I was going to do so with respect—the respect of seriously considering the religious ideas of others as more than intellectual curiosities. … People had prayed to, honored, held as sacred [these goddesses]” (Stone, “Introduction,” vol. I, p. 12).
Ancient Mirrors presents the story, function, and rituals for goddesses covering a substantial period of time and in an extensive range of countries and cultures. Not only has Merlin found the facts that document the existence of each goddess, she has actually created a “liturgy” for many of them—poems and prayers that can be recited to honor the goddess and invoke her powers. For example, she reverentially invokes Neit, the Egyptian goddess:
Most ancient Mother,
Great Radiant One,
Lady of the Stars,
Mistress of the Celestial Ocean. …
The Earth nestles between Her thighs,
as daily She gives birth to the Sun.
(Ancient Mirrors, vol. II, pp. 75–76)
The poem/prayer itself is seventy-one lines long, and in place of a simple, scholarly enumeration of Neit’s attributes, Merlin brings us into the metaphoric world of the goddess whose powers created and, daily, re-create our existence for us:
Her eye creating the Nile,
the stars glowing with emerald light
set into her very body,
the single word ‘beauty’ marked as a glyph
between Her sacred horns.
(Ancient Mirrors, vol. II, p. 76)
The “eye” becomes the Nile. The “stars glowing” are the body of the Goddess herself. All “beauty” exists within her. The sense that the very body of the Goddess provides us with our world is a central concept that poetry, with its devices of synecdoche (allowing the part to represent the whole) and personification, fosters. But more so, Merlin had an artist’s sense of texture and color so that her poems take on a sculptural and tactile feeling.
For the Hebrew goddess Shekhina, known in the Bible as “the Bride of Sabbath,” Merlin laments:
too long has She been in exile,
too long have Her people
sorrowed at Her absence …
Still the candles are lit,
still the sacred braided loaf is baked,
in hopes that Her ancient Sabbath spirit
will enter each home—
filling it with the Mother love
that is the very presence of the Shekhina.
(Ancient Mirrors, vol. I, p. 128)
Merlin’s poetry teaches, coaches, and sings the long-lost, the banished, the often-forbidden goddesses back into our lives.
For the Indian goddess Kali, Merlin cautions us not to succumb to racist associations with dark color being a lesser human form—or a lower caste in India itself. When Merlin invokes Kali, it is with a love for the darkness and the very sound of her name:
Black as the petal of a blue lotus at night,
black as the night touched by the light of the moon,
Kali is the essence of Night,
She who is called Sleep.
She who is named Dream,
She who is the joyous dancer of the cremation ground …
She is Maha Kali, Great Mother Time,
She is Nitya Kali, Everlasting Time,
She is Raksa Kali, Goblin yet Protector
during quake, famine or flood,
She is Smyama Kali, the Dark One who dispels fear,
She is Smasana Kali, Ever-Joyous Dancer.
(Ancient Mirrors, vol. II, pp. 23–24)
And so the poem goes on, creating a rhythm that could enthrall those reciting together and summon the spirit of the Goddess herself.
The usual form of Merlin’s poems first invokes the goddess, identifying her attributes and role in her people’s creation and culture. Then, Merlin may need to correct misinformation or defend a goddess who is falsely accused of wrongs. Two of Merlin’s poems are hundreds of lines long—essentially goddess epics that tell each goddess’s major story in verse. It is not to diminish the importance of scholarship that we can praise what Merlin has done—transcending mere fact to bring the Goddess back to life. A first encounter with any of her poems in her book might leave a reader to think that Merlin simply copied texts and incantations from ancient sources. Her genius, in fact, was in composing just the words that adherents might have recited in praise of each goddess. Merlin’s grasp of each goddess and of the nature of Goddess religion was so completely empathetic that she could credibly summon and honor each goddess.
Beacon Press, recognizing the genius of Merlin’s creations, bought the rights to her privately published two volumes and reissued them in a single paperback edition in 1984. Reviews quoted on the book’s promotional literature immediately identified its significance. Erica Jong, called it “an essential book for anyone interested in the female aspect of the deity” and applauded Merlin’s “passion.” The Akiko Dance Company of Hawaii noted the book was an “inspiration for an entire repertory of dances.” Poet and novelist Ruth Pettis said the book “can provide an endless source of ideas and inspiration for women image-makers—for poets and … for those in the visual arts.” Reviewer Karen Lindsey, writing for Sojourner Magazine, said, “These are stories to grow up with, to have around to reread … to nurture ourselves and our daughters.” It should be mentioned that Ancient Mirrors contains artwork created by Cynthia, Merlin’s daughter—a suite of twelve pen-and-ink drawings depicting goddesses and scenes within their related stories—as well as “Ruler of the House of Life,” a tapestry of Isis done by Merlin’s daughter Jenny. Together they are yet another testimonial to the love and talent of both the mother and the daughters.