Revenge Of The Goddess: Athena Strikes

I only thought hurricanes got "people" names but The Weather Channel has apparently decided to name the current one smashing against my city "Athena" -- against the express wishes of the National Weather Service --

Giant Athena statue in Nashville (source)

As an added sync, the above photo was taken from a site called Trip Advisor, whose logo is an owl -- one of Athena's symbols:

Of course, Athena is a pretty prominent goddess, patroness of (quoting Wikipedia here) "wisdom, courage, inspiration, civilization, law and justice, just warfare, mathematics, strength, strategy, the arts, crafts, and skill". She's also linked to a ton of other goddesses -- like the Libyan/Egyptian Neith (goddess of both war and the more domestic activity of weaving), who has been controversially (at least, in academic circles) been referred-to as "The Black Athena."

Neith

Neith, from "Wonder Woman"

Another goddess was invoked today, in relation to both the rather violent weather and the Election -- Mother Nature. A Twitter topic as I write this, she was apparently referred-to by the erudite documentary maker Michael Moore, who blogged the following:

"And you, Mother Nature, with all your horrific damage, death and destruction you caused last week, you became, ironically, the undoing of a Party that didn't believe in you or your climate changing powers. Perhaps they'll believe now."

Probably not the most sensitively put thing I've read at the moment, considering so many are still suffering from our previous storm. But it syncs perfectly with the idea of Athena as a storm. The revenge of the Goddess.

Yes, this is an actual comic book

Moore makes the "triumph" of women during the recent re-election of President Obama a focal point of his post, including thanking Sandra Fluke, who started the trend (by being a target) of GOP leaders and conservative pundits saying absolutely crazy-ass things about women and rape -- what was to be "branded" by the media as "The War On Women":

"Thank you Sandra Fluke for enduring the insults hurled at you and then becoming an important grassroots leader against the war on women. Thank you Todd Akin for...well, for just being you."

The real Sandra Fluke Vs. depiction by Far-Right

"The War On Sandra Fluke" Sets Off "The War On Women"

Another sync, another angry storm "goddess" -- Sandra and "Sandy."

Todd Akin, one of the out-of-touch GOPs who I believe hurt Romney in a huge way, was actually referred to as being "raped" by his female opponent: quoteth Jon Stewart: "Well it looks tonight like, in Missouri, Claire McCaskill has legitimately raped Todd Akin. Electorally speaking, obviously."

("Rape" never seems like a cool word to use in a joke, regardless of the context -- but that's just me)

Indeed, with last night's voting, more women are in the senate more than ever before, 20. Most of these women would share attributes with Athena, who is highly intelligent and a strategic "warrior."

Again: the unbelievably crass remarks by the GOP regarding females pretty much killed Romney's campaign. Suppressed Goddess energy has literally overflowed, burst out:

"When you open a flood gate, how can you undo it?...There is no undoing; it must run it's course."
-- from "The Craft," 1996 

Or maybe that wasn't the reason Obama won at all. Maybe it was, as some people wrote, "Flag Head Lady":

"Flag Head Lady"

Neith

I'm not a huge traditional feminist, but I don't want to be forced to carry my rapist's baby either (neither did Athena, after Hephaestus attempted to rape her; she "foiled" the rape and his semen fell on Gaia/"Mother Nature" instead, who got pregnant by default. Those wacky Greeks!).

Women in my field, and especially in the field of gaming, were horrifically targeted with abusive language and threats of rape and murder this year, far worse than I observed in any other year since the Internet was a "thing." As I watched this mass exodus of women from blogging -- citing feeling unsafe and unprotected in the midst of what was default stalking that made its way offline -- I wondered what set this off? Why this year? And this doesn't even count the women overseas who are getting shot in the face and acid thrown on them for daring to get an education or talk about "rights."

I go back to my post on the comic book "goddesses" Phoenix and Pandora.

These female deities "ruled" the mainstream comic book world this year -- this, in a field dominated by male characters. Phoenix in particular is interesting, as she is, in a sense, a "bird-goddess" -- as is Athena and a whole "class" of goddesses:

This whole business has a lot of personal meaning to me as well -- the violent climate change inspiring me to do everything from questioning living in NYC anymore, to questioning what my purpose is in life, to a greater realization that there is a bigger community out there that needs help (and that, in the face of this and worse situations, the city's infrastructure might not be able to withstand).

But I, also, have an energy -- mostly creative and intellectual -- that needs to burst through:

And so I'll continue analyzing and writing. I feel I shall have no lack of topics in the weeks ahead.