Athena - the Goddess of Wisdom - (1230)

It is said that Athena, the Goddess of wisdom was born from within the head of Zeus. After suffering from an intense head ache, a  large cleft opened in Zues' head and Athena emerged fully grown and battle ready.

This says something about wisdom in that, wisdom has a divine origin and has its centre of gravity in the first of the three primary forces (Zeus), that is in the Father. This makes sense as the intellectual centre is the receptacle of the first primary force. Wisdom in many instances certainly comprises a strong intellectual component.

Her Implements

The shield of Athena or Minerva displays the decapitated head of Medusa. This is a direct reference to mystical death, psychological death or to the death of the myself.

This may also tell us that mystical death protects us from danger, as it always does and that it, is the major levering point of wisdom and justice. One can not have justice or wisdom without mystical death. One is defenceless before wisdom and justice is one does not have some mystical death.

Athena is usually depicted with an owl on her shoulder, which is a symbol of wisdom, mainly because it is so alert, it keeps vigil during the night and can see 360 degrees and can see very clearly in the dark. This is an interesting allusion telling us that wisdom comes from having studied and transformed darkness. Because one has transformed darkness one is no longer scared of it.

Usually she is shown dominating a serpent, which reminds us of the tempting serpent of Eden, the hypnotic power of the Kundabuffer. 

Her spear is a representation of the sexual force that is used in mystical death. This very interesting, the spear is a masculine symbol and wisdom or intelligence a feminine one, the fact that she has a spear indicates that the combination of the masculine and feminine is needed, the force (spear) and intelligence (helmet).

Her golden helmet once again emphasizes the intellectual centre or the consciousnesses as a key component of wisdom and that wisdom is acquired through the experience of liberating the trapped parts of the essence from its conditioning.

Sometimes, our particular Divine Mother can take on the appearance of Athena, as a wise and intrepid warrior lady hunting down the ego we need to eliminate. 

Why a Goddess of Wisdom?

Wisdom is represented by a Goddess because, wisdom is more feminine in nature, it is about knowing, cognition, knowledge, understanding, comprehension of lived experience, memory, etc. It is inert in nature (unmoving) and is half of the solution. It needs to be combined with force or love to make a complete solution in manifestation. It needs something to be manifested, and that something is force or love. Force needs wisdom to be effective, otherwise it is purely destructive, and love also needs wisdom so to be truly effective. Even wisdom aids justice, as wisdom gives the faculty of discerning, measuring, weighing and foreseeing consequences.

After all, isn't the feminine naturally, instinctively more intelligent, wiser, more cunning etc. than the masculine?

End (1230).