Goddess Profiles: Athena

(Goddess profiles is an ongoing series looking into the lore, attributes, symbolism, archetypal significance, and relevance to the modern world for a diverse range of divine females)

Athena

(https://www.flickr.com/photos/archer10/9149943223)

Athena Pallas of the Flashing Green Eyes! Protrectress of cities, patroness of heroes! Eternally temperate and fair, removed from emotion in Her judgment, but with a soft spot for mankind.

After a foretelling of his downfall at the hands of his coming child, Zeus devoured his then wife Metis, a daughter of the Ocean renowned for Her wisdom, along with the immortal fetus growing within. But the Gatherer of Clouds had committed the same mistake as his father, for immortals by definition do not perish so easily. Not long after, Zeus began to suffer from head-splitting headaches. Suitably enough, Prometheus, humanity's creator and greatest benefactor, was summoned to remedy the situation. The Giver of Fire thus did cleave the chief Olympian's head in twain and out from the fissure sprang Athena, radiant and deadly in full battle dress.

Athena posing with her snake, symbol of the Kundalini and humanity's divine potential, perhaps?

Victory Incarnate, She was birthed into the world strong and resolute, yet still possessing transcendent feminine beauty that struck men dumb even when in mortal disguise. She matured within the cranium of Her father and persisted like a lingering phantom of the great evil he had done. And yet it can't be denied that She was a part of him, nor that he was a part of Her, having burst forth from his own mind.

When Athena entered the world so triumphantly, an equilibrium was restored in the cosmos. The simultaneously productive and destructive male energy had run to the extreme and a correction was necessary. From injustice, an avatar of justice born. She represents this balancing between the energies within us we label female and male. Only when these two opposite but complementary internal forces can sing together in union and harmony will true wisdom come into our world once more. Athena of the Burning Owl Eyes sees all!

Her aspect as the wisdom goddess also links her to Sophia, the active intelligence that creates and animates Nature. Wisdom as a bridge between male and female could also represent the two halves of our brains and how they must balance and work together to achieve optimal results