With Earth Day coming up soon, I may as well share with you a deity associated with fertility and life.
However, instead of Gaia (the Greek Mother Earth), I present a life-giving spirit from a different part of the world:
Down Under, in Australia
The Indigenous peoples of Australia believe in a beneficiary spirit known as the Rainbow Serpent.
One of the eldest deities still worshipped today, this dragon of the Dreamtime is associated with the rains, which give life to the Earth.
It dwells in watering holes and creates riverbeds by slithering across the marvelous land of Oz.
It also besets people with floods and storms as punishment for breaking taboos.
The Rainbow Serpent's native name varies from cultural group to cultural group.
To the Yolngu people of Arnhem Land (the northwest coast of Australia), the Rainbow Serpent is known as Yurlunngur.
In Yolngu tradition, it is said that two women known as the Wagilak Sisters hung out by a watering hole (where Yurlunngur lived).
When one of them had her "monthly" into the watering hole, Yurlunngur was enraged and devoured the Wagilak sisters...roiling up a great flood!
The Moral of this Story:
Keep the waters clean, lest you be devoured by a huge rainbow snake.
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