Dragon Rights

Photo by Katrin Hauf on Unsplash

On the fourth morning of vacation I awoke a dragon.

You might say I found her in one of the many caves in the cliffs at Hocking Hills. Or, perhaps I found her in all of them. Caves feel to me like sacred spaces, intimate openings in the earth, places where the body of the Mother can be entered. I walked, crawled, and climbed into every cave I could reach along the trails we hiked, tracing my hand along the cool, damp and pebbly or sandy surface, wondering at the different textures and the way the rock changed color between layers. Moss grew on sun-ward surfaces, and sometimes tiny ferns. I brushed these reverently, almost enviously. Oh to live as they do, clinging to the very bones of Mother, constantly in contact with her. I walked the trails almost in a daze, drunk on the early summer lushness of thriving plants and the ripple of falling water. Like the apples on my trees back home, this land is ripening. I could not get enough.

One image came to me again and again over my week of wandering, that of the Sheila-na-Gig. I found her in a book of Celtic women’s spirituality (titled Celtic Women’s Spirituality by Edain McCoy). The Sheila is a simple and overtly sexual image of a woman squatting while holding wide the lips of her vagina, her expression both serene and inviting. I found her oddly riveting. Of this image, McCoy writes:

The meaning behind the Sheila-na-Gig has been argued to be one of blessing or protection, though it is more likely that she offers an invitation into the feminine mysteries. The triangular pattern of her vulva evokes the the sacred number three of the Triple Goddess of the Celts; the virgin, mother, and crone in one who represents the full cycle of birth, death, and regeneration. In this aspect, the Sheila-na-Gig symbolizes an open gateway to the Otherwold for those brave enough to accept initiation into her mysteries¹.

A 12th-century sheela na gig on the church at Kilpeck, Herefordshire, England..

Found carved on churches, convents, and other religious sites throughout the United Kingdom, especially in Ireland, the Sheila is shocking in her straight-forwardness. But why, I wondered when I first found her, is she so shocking? Obelisks are such common monuments that nobody even thinks about their rather blatant phallic symbology, and most churches still have a spire on top—a shaft raised to point the way to the “head” of the church. It was common during the Middle Ages for Sheilas to decorate the doorways of convents in Ireland, until scandalized male clergy put a stop to it². Imagine walking into a church through a doorway marked by a giant vulva, instead of walking in beneath a huge penis? Am I making you uncomfortable yet? Linking sex with religion tends to make us Westerners squirm like little else…even though our own main holy book is filled with not-so-subtle references (ever read The Song of Solomon? Oh wait, that’s just an allegory. Right.). Mystics throughout the ages have been fond of using lover-like language when describing the Divine and their relationship to the Divine, and many religions around the world have employed erotic ecstatic rituals in their quest to shake off human constraints and dive deeper into Divine mystery. So why is an image like this so immediately off-putting to many?

I could go on a purity culture rant here, but I’m not going to. You’ve heard it all before. Instead, I want to talk a bit more about the Sheila herself. McCoy continues:

In her physical form she represents the insatiable, devouring power long attributed to the feminine sex organs, an image potent enough to have caused many men—and some women—to fear and oppress this Goddess and her sisters, and to take out that fear on women throughout the ages.

Never mind “penis envy,” can we talk a minute about vagina envy? Sure, having one comes with the highly inconvenient and uncomfortable reality of spending 12 out of 52 weeks every year bloated, cramping, and emotionally volatile, not to mention the even less convenient or comfortable possibility of pregnancy and childbirth (damn, I’m already talking myself out of this point aren’t I?), but some men would probably trade for the insatiability I experience during the, um, higher points of my cycle, and any man who’s ever been kicked in the tenders has probably wished, even momentarily, for internal sex organs. Add to that the near magical ability of the vagina to be stretched out of all bounds by the disgorgement of an entire human baby—an ordinary miracle in and of itself—and then be fully functional again in just a couple of weeks…yeah, sorry fellas. I think we got the better “end” of that deal. But I digress.

This fearful image, [the Sheila’s embodiment of female sexual appetites] is one of the reasons why many of the old Goddesses, Celtic and otherwise, have been diabolized and recreated into vampiric demons, ugly hags, and evil fairies. Somehow they seemed less threatening in this form than when they were worshiped as deities and creators³.

Think of every Disney movie or children’s book you viewed as a kid. If a woman was characterized as being sexy, she was probably also evil. Usually an old hag in disguise. Think about the prevalence of that socially-inflicted correlation, and what that might have done to your developing psyche. Devastating, right? McCoy further states:

The devouring female who could not control her bodily urges was such an inspiration of terror [never mind that the vast majority of sexual violence is perpetrated by men against women] that it can be reasonably cited as the primary reason why so many of today’s women literally starve themselves to gain the approval of men. Making themselves appear weak, small, and childlike, devoid of normal human appetites, makes them less threatening and less Goddess-like⁴.

Whaaaaaat???? Once and for all, fuck diet culture. I’ll be proud of my curves if they mark me as a woman with natural appetites.

McCoy continues:

With the diminishing of that status, the power of creation inherent in [female] deities also vanished, leaving in its wake a feminine figure with no procreative powers, one who serves no purpose beyond that of servant and sex object. Today’s magical woman must never forget that will becomes reality; with this desire to appear less powerful came the true loss of power, and this allowed women to come more easily under the domination of men⁵.

And this is where dragons come in.