Snow Spirit is an enigmatic goddess who has traveled eons to make her presence known to us in these troubled times. In Platonic parlance an eon, in addition to being a very long period of time, points to a power existing from eternity; an emanation or phase of the supreme deity.

In this case, “supreme deity” alludes to the Great Goddess, mother to all the Mother Goddesses throughout history, of which there are many. Every culture has had it’s own. Even Islam, a rigidly monotheistic culture, worshiped Al-Lat. Her name means The Goddess. Al-lat was a moon goddess, the wife of Allah, moon god to the Arabians.

In Judaism, the feminine presence of God who dwells among us is called The Shekinah, translated as “caused to dwell.” It was the Glory of the Shekinah who led the Israelites out of the desert. In Jewish mysticism she is said to be “in sorrowful exile” going on now for 2,500 years or so.

We mention The Shekinah (a.k.a. the Divine Feminine) 8 times in the Chrysalis Tarot Companion Book. Here’s my personal favorite:

“The exile of the Shekinah finds its cultural analog in the separation
of the cosmic soul (Psyche) from human conscious awareness
(ego). This is a predictable consequence of a materialist worldview
that insists upon the primacy of matter and pigeonholes consciousness
as a mere function of matter—specifically, a function of the gray
matter inside the human skull.”

In Chrysalis, we believe (1) in panpsychism – everything in the physical world possesses some degree of consciousness; (2) in non-local consciousness – that consciousness exists independent of the brain, and (3) that consciousness is the timeless and eternal Ground of All Being – a metaphor for the Absolute or the Great Goddess.

It’s little wonder that in these days the Great Goddess chooses to come to us from a cave in Southwestern France 13,000 years ago as Snow Spirit.

The Upper Paleolithic culture of that time was called the Magdalenian Culture. The actual engraving (shown in this link) in Trois-Freres cave is androgynous. Since the cave was re-discovered in 1914, the logical assumption at the time was the engraving depicted a male sorcerer in the form of a therianthrope (part human, part animal) as shown in the artistic interpretation on the left.

Holly’s drawing of Snow Spirit corrects this error – the Magdalenian Culture was matrilineal and matriarchal and accordingly they would have evolved female deities and female shamans.

You can learn more about the Magdalenian Culture and Magdalenian Girl, whose skeletal remains rest at the Field Museum in Chicago here.

The incarnation of Snow Spirit we’re most familiar with is Elen of the Ways, a Celtic Welsh goddess. Here’s what mythologist and artist Judith Shaw wrote about Elen:

“Elen of the Ways is She who guides us on these paths of change. Like so many Celtic Goddesses, She is elusive, shimmering, changeable. She endures through the ages, shifting into what each time needs Her to be. She is an antlered goddess who rules the Ways, the Roads, the Passages of human life, both physical and spiritual.”

I personally believe that restoring Elen and Snow Spirit to conscious awareness will help guide and protect our journey through the murky corridors of the present paradigm shift, which is becoming murkier with each passing day. Paleolithic goddesses are enigmatic because we know virtually nothing about them. We are able, however, to infer and intuit certain characteristics, attributes and symbology as well as glean their whispered messages – consciousness is timeless.

For example, the Paleolithic Magdalenian Culture existed on the cusp of the Mesolithic or Middle Stone Age. Magdalenian Girl’s fragile world was changing as radically as ours is today. Her own paradigm shift and its lessons for us will be the subject of our next blog.

Blessings.

© Toney Brooks 2/2/22