Volcanoes, Mount Doom and the Great Mother

Volcanoes, fiery eruptions from within the earth, were repeatedly interpreted as the wrath of God and associated with the Mother Goddess.

To get started:
Tongariro Crossing, a hike to Mount Doom

Fire from the Earth: God's Speeches in Volcanoes

In earlier times, when people were still hunters and gatherers, they lived in strong connection with nature. They worshipped "Mother Earth" as a life-giving and nurturing deity long before the advent of a spiritual Father-God.

Violent natural manifestations that shook their livelihoods were experienced as signs of supernatural power and attributed to divine forces. Thus, volcanoes with their fiery violence from within the earth were repeatedly interpreted as the "wrath of God" or the wrath of the goddess.

Volcanoes in lore

Accordingly, volcanoes already play a role in early human lore.
In the Babylonian tradition (c. 1500 BC) Gilgamesh is afraid of a mountain of fire, a volcano, which could fall on him and his companion.
Jewish tradition also relates that Moses spoke to "God" on a mountain in fire and smoke, who instructed him to show the people the right way (cf. The Exodus from Egypt).

H.R. Tolkien places in his epic "The Lord of the Rings", Tolkien places the volcano at the centre of the struggle between good and evil, love and power, the righteous king and the evil ruler. Yet the Ring of Power can only be destroyed in the Mountain of Fire itself, in Mount Doom, namely where it was forged.

Volcanoes as a symbol for the wrath of the feminine

Fire as a symbol for the male, physical passion

Fire is the symbol of the male body (see The Four Elements). It is active, warming, forward moving and space occupying energy. But if the fire is too close or too big, it can become destructive.

Fire as a symbol for female pain and anger

Just as fire can burn the earth, male fiery passion can also "burn" the woman's body. If the woman is abused or emotionally hurt by it, the fire goes into the woman's body and soul. It smoulders inside her and can suddenly erupt in fiery anger like a volcano. (S. The negative couple dynamic FIRE.)

In the grip of the negative animus: fractious and destructive like a volcano

Behind this is the woman's inner shadow man, who has not yet been integrated. Animus as an inner body of painwho floods her with aggressive and power-oriented masculinity.
Thus, the anger and rebellion of the feminine, i.e. of the woman and the people, can ultimately always be seen as a reaction to the abuse of power.

Love Died

Physical and emotional pain can cause love and trust to die. The feminine in negativity then also enters the power play. Immature men fear this rage.

The wounded woman as monster, witch or evil fairy in traditions

Mesopotamia and later mythologies

In Sumerian lore, the ruler of the underworld is initially full of fiery and murderous wrath. Thus, in the traditions since the Babylonian Gilgamesh epic, female deities were replaced by male gods or monsters.
Already in the Gilgamesh epic itself, there are no longer any strong female figures, but only monsters that must be slain.

Fairy tale

In fairy tales, the angry and vengeful woman who wields power is called a "witch". In her supernatural dimension as the 13th fairy with her curse, she represents The collective reality of abuse which means nothing other than: Abuse is normal in this world.
The Disney films "Maleficent" are also about this as Sleeping Beauty interpretations. They address how and why the fairy became "evil" and how the overcoming of evil can look like through the integration of the shadows.

The Ring of Power and the Volcano

The Ring of Power: Rape instead of love

The Babylonian king Gilgamesh, ruler of Uruk, is described right at the beginning of the epic as a despot who abuses his power by oppressing the people, killing men and raping virgins. Therefore, he actually has every reason to fear the volcano as a symbol of raging femininity and punishing goddess of fate. Fate will also hit him hard in the course of the epic, thus moving him to set out on his hero's journey.

Destruction of the ring in the volcano

The Volcano and the Destruction of the Ring: Purification

The volcano as a mountain of destiny and the mother deity

The goddess in her third aspect as a deity of fate

In his life, fate repeatedly gives man the opportunity to look the truth about himself in the face and thus come to a turning point. It leads through trials that result from material circumstances. Time and again, people have also seen the work of God in fate. Strictly speaking, fate represents the third aspect of the Mother Godhead as life in matter (see Feminine Wholeness - the Goddess, 3-in-1.).

Respect for higher orders

A rebellion against fate, as it is thematised in the Gilgamesh epic, leads to negativity and has a destructive effect. The basic prerequisite for a happy life, on the other hand, is the ability to accept circumstances that one cannot change and to make the best of them. In this way, respect for higher orders ("God") is also expressed and the acceptance that as a human being one cannot know everything.

Inner dying on the way through the underworld

If man wants to overcome power and find eternal life with love, then he cannot be spared the path to the underworld, in other words, the path through his own Shadow.

The underworld is the realm of the great mother. As the mistress of the underworld symbolises life itself, which confronts man with his unconscious burning Driveen. Through awareness, the identity of power, the ego, is overcome and the identity of love is found. Thus man becomes the good king in his own life and enters into the eternal existence of love (see The Ego and the Self).

Overcoming death and resurrection to new life

Thus, volcanoes with their fire are repeatedly associated with punishment and purification in traditions. In this context, severity represents the feminine side of divine power and therefore the great mother as fate. Higher justice also means: Man receives at length what he deserves. But the loving Father shows mercy and gives him many chances to repent.

Ultimately, however, everything that has not arisen from love will go up in the fire. In a figurative sense, this means that everything that does not endure in the face of eternity will perish, that is, the "dead" works of the ego and the drives. In the process, power will finally run itself to death, for the outermost expression of power is death.

Father and Mother and the New Creation of Love

Love, on the other hand, remains eternal because it overcomes death. It is the highest spiritual power of the universe. Its expression is the loving consciousness, symbolised by the FATHER. He gives the impulse for the new creation into the darkness of living matter (the MOTHER) and thus brings about the birth of the new - in life itself, symbolised by the great Mother.

This incredible photo by Oliver Spalt captures the meeting of the two forces as creative elemental forces: between the FATHER as the igniting spark "from HEAVEN" and the MOTHER as the fiery life force inside the EARTH, in the underworld. (Image source: Oliver Spalt, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=141934.)

We continue with:

The Great Feminine in the Underworld
Ereshkigal, Mistress of the Underworld

Mentioned traditions:

The Sumerian Mythology of Inanna, the Goddess of Love, Summary
The Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, Summary
Introduction to the Gilgamesh Epic
The Exodus from Egypt
Sleeping Beauty
Maleficent as Goddess of Fate
The Lord of the Rings

Mentioned or further contributions:

Father and Mother, Spirit and Matter
Consciousness and the unconscious
Feminine wholeness - the Goddess, White / Red / Black

The four elements, meaning
The negative couple dynamics FIRE
The poisoned apple - abuse as a collective reality
The negative animus as devil or pain body
The pain body of the woman - dark ruler in the shadows
Secrets as a curse

The Ego
The drive

The Hero's Path
- Phase 5 - The Trial by Fire: Purification, Dying of the Ego
The Integration of the Shadow and the Path through the Underworld
Kingship in Life