The Living Goddesses Quotes

“Excavators uncovered one of Malta's most famous Neolithic sculptures, the "Sleeping Lady" of the Hypogeum, off the main hall. She reclines peacefully on her side, head in hand...This sculpture and another one shown lying on her stomach on a couch reminds us of initiation and healing rites known in later classical times. During these various classical ceremonies, the initiate spent a night in the temple (or cave or other remote place). The initiate experienced a night of visions and dreams, with spiritual or physical healing taking place...This rite probably derived from Neolithic practices that likened sleeping in a cave, temple, or underground chamber to slumbering in the goddess' uterus before spiritual reawakening. For the living, such a ritual brought physical healing and spiritual rebirth. For the dead, burial within underground chambers, shaped and colored like the uterus, represented the possibility of regeneration through the goddess' symbolic womb.”
― Marija Gimbutas, The Living Goddesses

“At Newgrange, the owl goddess' round eyes, multiple beaks, and brow ridges peer down from the ceiling. They appear in a peculiar quadrupled design and in association with snake coils, zigzags, lozenges, and winding snakes. Eyes and snake coils are interchangeable on many megalithic monuments. Further symbolic fusions of symbols include eyes and suns, with the sun featuring radiating rays or concentric circles with a center dot. These symbols, so elaborately engraved on stones, evoke the goddess' sacred power and energy however she was worshiped: as owl, snake, sun, or moon.”
― Marija Gimbutas, The Living Goddesses