I was reading the latest issue of Bust Magazine and mine eye was caught by a striking graphic and unusual headline: ANCIENT VAGINA GODDESS BAUBO IS THE PERFECT SYMBOL OF FEMINE POWER FOR OUR TROUBLED TIMES.” Reading on I was informed that Baubo shows up in sacred literature in no less prominent a spot than the myth of Demeter and Persephone: after Persephone has been kidnapped by Hades, Demeter goes in search of her, reaching Eleusis is utter despair — Baubo comes along, offers, her wine, food, etc. to no avail. Finally Baubo lifts her skirt and exposes her genitals to the Goddess who then takes heart, has a meal and goes back on her quest — which does end happily (well, happily enough as Hades slips Persephone some pomegranate seeds so that she has to return half of every year with him). The article makes reference to a definitive work on Baubo, The Metamorphosis of Baubo: Myths of Woman’s Sexual Energy by Winifred Lubell. So — if you’re looking for a late Solstice gift this could be it – a fine way to commemorate the mid-point of Persephone’s annual stay in the underworld. The description posted online says:
“From primitive European and African carvings and cave drawings to the classical poetry, pottery, and sculpture of Attic Greece, from mysterious and disturbing female shapes on the facades of certain gothic Christian churches to startling and instructive examples of contemporary myths in the making, Winifred Milius Lubell tracks a vast resource of visual and textual evidence in this first book-length study of Baubo. Lubell’s artistic and literary sources support the argument that from the earliest moments of civilization, humans have respected and revered female sexual energy, graphically symbolized in the vulva, as an indispensable force in the balance of nature. Over the ages, the images of Baubo and her sisters assumed deviant and disturbing forms, but the basic lines of her legend and its visual manifestations were not completely obscured. Nor, as this book will show, has Baubo’s essential power been destroyed even in our own age.”
One place you could purchase this tome is here:
https://www.amazon.com/Metamorphosis-Baubo-Womans-Sexual-Energy/dp/0826512526.
