the Sacred Feminine

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

Very interesting question yavanna II. I would think that there is quite palpably in LotR, at least, a sense of feminine divinity, but not in or through any simple association of character X with Divine Power. Instead, I think that the divine attribute which manifests time and again throughout the story of Pity is best or most highly exemplified by a series of female characters in the story.

The supreme good act that the hero can perform in LotRis to deny the Ring: to renounce personal desire for the sake of other people; to take pity on the world by refusing to put oneself forward. Aragorn does this when he refuses to claim the Ring as his own, Faramir does it, Gandalf does it and – most memorably – Galadriel does it. Pity is, throughout the story, associated with the female characters: Galadriel shows it to Frodo and the world by not taking the Ring, Éowyn is cured by it, Shelob utterly lacks it (and is defeated, at least in part, by the Phial of Galadriel). The Pity that Tolkien works through is not just soup-kitchen charity, but the ability to see that there is something more important than the individual self: something that demands the self puts other concerns and people first. This is, according to Tolkien, an inherently feminine way of thinking, with the most masculine impulse being exemplified by characters like Boromir, Saruman and Sauron: men who put themselves forward, and who show no Pity to anyone.

So it’s not that women demonstrate Pity and are thus divine, but that the feminine trait of Pity (be it demonstrated by men or women) is divine. I think that there’s a lot of Tolkien’s Catholicism at work here. One of the most powerful images in the Catholic imagination is that of the pietá (from which the modern words piety and pity both come), which is the image of Mary holding the dead body of her son and weeping over it. Tolkien saw in this image of Mary an expression of an ideal that I think he valued, and that he shows us in Frodo’s journey into Mordor: in that time between the death of Christ and his rebirth, what is there to keep humanity going and hope alive? There is only the willingness of people to put others first, to say “I will sacrifice myself for others.” Mary exemplified that to Tolkien, for she willingly sacrificed her only son for the good of the world. She took pity on humanity.

[Sophia the Thunder Mistress]

Tar Ancalime I thought this was a wonderfully interesting idea:

I'm going out on a Legendarium limb here, not having read HoME, but could it be that the very classification of the Vala into genders (like referring to the Sun as "she", as Ka pointed out) can be thought of as a storytelling device employed by the Elves?

although, I think that I would alter it slightly to say that the Valar employed it themselves as a device to make themselves more knowable.

So it’s not that women demonstrate Pity and are thus divine, but that the feminine trait of Pity (be it demonstrated by men or women) is divine.

As Fordim points out, the point of identifying the "Sacred Feminine" is not (or at least should not be) to attribute some divinity to femininity, as though it would otherwise be lacking, but rather to point out what has been culturally considered Feminine and its exemplification in the divinity (or pseudo divinity in the case of Galadriel) in the setting of Middle Earth.

As per the actual thread content:

Even though Tolkien pointed out Galadriel as his Mary-figure, I've always seen an element of her in Elwing. I've always been reminded of Mary by her self-sacrifice to bring the Silmaril to Earendil which resulted in the Valar's eventual arrival and the permanent defeat of Melkor. Perhaps she shares a bit in the Sacred Feminine of Middle-Earth?

Sophia

[THE Ka]

If I remember rightly the bodies that the valar chose to dress themselves in were chosen to reflect their inclinations. It should be remembered that they were spiritual rather than physical beings - and the use of the word spouse again is in the sense of a spiritual rather than physical union (which is why the idea of the Maiar being the offspring of the Valar was rejected).

Furthering on that, If we know, or are told that Eru created them out of his thought, to represent different spiritual aspects, can we not speculate that upon arriving (or that the valar sensed that they existed) that they began to form themselves to what they thought of thmeselves. They, as thought began to somehow know that they would have to become some part, or some relation with Arda and Eru, but they were free to mold themselves. For spiritual references to coupling it might be seen that it was either relativity of the valars' each chosen aspects that caused this 'union' or that they shared common, if not entire relations to what they governed. Example might be Yavanna and Aulë. Yavanna chose to govern all growing things apon Arda, while Aulë was concerned with the substances of arda. Their relation can be seen in how they are both concerned with one, Arda and two, things Arda creates or is able to.


Whew... Okay, I'm done for tonight.

~Ka