yourlifeisatrip

by Nancy King

When a group with whom I was traveling entered the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in Ankara , Turkey, they headed for the Mother Goddess exhibit. Even hearing the word “mother” makes me tense; mine was good at making apple pie but never learned the recipe for loving and nurturing, associated in most people’s minds with the way a mother ought to be. And since I’ve never been beautiful or powerful, I don’t go out of my way to seek images of goddesses—never saw one with whom I could identify. So, when the group went right, I went left, agreeing to meet them at the bus.
 
I wandered around, looking at the world-class collection of Hittite culture, impressed by antiquity but not fully engaged until I saw her and stopped. I literally could not move. I forgot where I was. All I saw was the small gold statue in a glass case. She called to me. She demanded my attention. Unlike other Mother Goddess statues I’ve seen, one more voluptuous than the next, this Hittite Mother Goddess had skinny arms and legs. Her hands, which rested on her belly, expressed resignation and vulnerability. What was her power over me? Why couldn’t I stop looking at her? I laughed at my foolishness. She was only a statue in a glass case. My feet weren’t glued to the floor. I could move. I could catch up with the group. And yet, I couldn’t. I stayed, Transfixed. Spellbound. Unable to move.
 
My instantaneous, powerful connection to the skinny earth mother mystified me. She wasn’t beautiful. She didn’t seem extraordinary. She had no compelling history that identified her as a goddess. Yet I had the weird sensation that I knew her, that she knew me, that she wanted me to tell her story. I would have stood there for a much longer time, staring, when two visitors jostled me, breaking the spell of the Goddess. One of them told me that my tour group was leaving. Uncharacteristically, with an impulse I didn’t understand, I raced to the Museum Shop and bought a small copy of the Hittite Mother Goddess statue before I ran to the waiting bus.