To mark October, Halloween and Samhain, this month's altar honours the ancient Celtic crone goddess Sheela Na Gig. Old and withered, hairless and probably toothless, she nevertheless grins broadly as she spreads her yoni/vulva open in a welcoming gesture. Her carved stonework depictions are typically found in medieval churches, convents, castles and stone walls in Ireland, Wales and England. Many of these images were destroyed by shocked, prudish Puritans/Victorians, so the ones which still exist are often found in high, inaccessible spots in those structures.
Sheela Na Gig's meaning has puzzled Christian scholars for centuries. Is she simply a form of gargoyle or grotesque? Is she a warning about the Deadly Sin of Lust? Or is she a pagan symbol placed in Christian holy spaces by medieval heretics, dissenters or pranksters?
Modern scholarship has determined that Sheela Na Gig is indeed a pagan symbol pre-dating Christianity in Britain. Her message, it is now believed, has nothing to do with sexuality but instead concerns death and rebirth/reincarnation. The Crone Goddess' gesture is showing that, on death, everything and everyone returns to the womb of the Divine where the mystery of creation continues in a never-ending cycle. Her smile indicates that this is not a sad or scary time because life and creation are always ongoing.
My Sheela Na Gig statue comes from a lovely gift shop in Avebury, England. My Rare One bought it for me when we visited the magnificent Avebury Stone Circle site in 2009. Later, I bought the pottery bowl here in Edmonton as a gift for My Rare One. The candles are also hers (found at a craft sale years and years ago). These items are on loan for this altar, plus she graciously allowed me to light the candles as well.
The altar cloth is a sheer purple scarf adorned with goddess symbols of golden pentacles and waning crescent crone moons. To represent new life from the womb of the creator goddess, I filled the symbolic womb-bowl with a bouquet of fresh flowers in autumnal harvest colours.
[Photos © Debra She Who Seeks, 2024]
