Baubo, Belly Goddess
Goddess Path, October 2004

There's some good news, and some bad news.

The good news: Within our bodies, we carry the power to promote creation, kin to the power that creates, sustains, and regenerates the world.

The bad news: Unless we direct our pro-creative power to preserving life on this planet, humankind will perish.

Now's the time for us to be woman-warriors for peace, justice, sustainability. The question is: Will we have the courage—the guts—to act for tribal survival?

I have a name for the spark of Divine Assistance that can strengthen and guide us in these times. I call her what the ancient Greeks did: Baubo, the belly goddess.

The belly goddess? Stay with me here.

I'll introduce you to Baubo by recapping the ancient Greek story of Persephone and Demeter. And I'll suggest a modern update.

Who is Persephone? If you know spring, you know Persephone, the maiden. Demeter is mother, Persephone's mother, the Earth goddess, Gaia herself.

Persephone is out tending to her meadows one day when, suddenly, the ground splits open. Hades rises up, grabs her, steals her away into his underworld kingdom.

When Persephone fails to return, her mother, Demeter, is devastated. The earth reflects her despair. Crops won't grow, the fields are barren. Famine threatens human survival.

Demeter searches far and wide for her daughter. Nearly paralyzed by grief, she arrives at a place called Eleusis. She collapses onto a rock. The Greeks called this the "Laughless Rock"—the depths of depression.

I've spent some time sitting on that rock. Can anyone relate?

Baubo notices Demeter's arrival. The old woman hobbles over to Demeter and stands before her.

What does Baubo do? She starts dancing a hip-wiggling jig, flashes her vulva, and tells Demeter bawdy jokes. What kind of jokes?

My friend told me that a few nights ago her husband's Viagra got stuck in his throat. Not much happened, but this morning he woke up with a stiff neck.

That kind of joke.

Demeter can't keep a straight face. Soon, her belly is jiggling with laughter. Demeter remembers who she is and the pro-creative power she holds within her body. Now Demeter has the guts to keep looking for her daughter.

She eventually finds Persephone. The earth becomes fertile again. Humankind survives.

That's the story the ancients told. Here's the update:

Hades has learned to be subtle. He realizes that he doesn't have to kidnap Persephone. It serves his purpose just as well to capture her attention.

He captures the girl's attention with gilded trinkets and rhinestone jewelry.

And he gives Persephone a mirror. The mirror is warped; it distorts her image. Whenever she looks in it, hoping to see her own beauty, all she sees is an ugly reflection.

The warped mirror totally absorbs Persephone in a never-ending effort to fix how she looks, to fix herself.

Meanwhile, Demeter has been poisoned, robbed, battered. She’s sick; her vitality fades daily.

Demeter's sickness is the earth's suffering. The air is foul, the rivers are toxic, the soil is barren, the oceans are dying.

Now Baubo enters the story. She finds Persephone peering into the mirror, wondering which diet to go on—South Beach? Atkins? Fat Flush? "I'm so fat," she wails. "There's something wrong with me!"

Baubo swipes the mirror out of Persephone's hand, smashes it to the ground.

"There's nothing wrong with you, girl," she says. "That mirror is a pack of lies.

"Do you really want to hand over your self-esteem to the weight loss industry? Do you really think there's something wrong with you? Do you think you're missing something? Are you agreeing with Dr. Freud that you're suffering from penis envy? As the elephant said to the naked man 'It's cute, but can you breathe through that thing?'"

Persephone laughs so hard that she can't resist when Baubo takes her by the hand to pay a visit to her mother, Demeter, and they do.

Persephone, shocked, sees that her mother is dying. She sees that Demeter’s sickness explains her own fatigue, allergies, chronic illnesses, degenerative diseases. She feels helpless, overwhelmed, and starts to deny the whole situation.

But then Baubo dances hip-wiggling jig and flashes her belly. Telling a few more of her bawdy jokes, she reminds Persephone of the sacred power she carries within her body's center. Emboldened to act bravely, the young woman…

How does the story end? What happens to Demeter? Really, it's up to us.

There's good news, and there's bad news.

The bad news is: We humans have already torn apart the web of life that sustains us.

The good news is: Baubo, the belly goddess, is alive and well. Where? She lives within our body's center. She is the goddess in our midst.

Give her room to breathe and she'll move us beyond the illusion that there's something wrong with us.

Give her room to breathe and she'll take us to knowing ourselves as sacred beings.

Give her room to breathe and she'll give us the guts to save ourselves and our planet.

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