The Medusa Speaks

Painting: Arnold Bocklin, circa 1878

As I pondered a title for this site, I started to think about Medusa and what she has represented throughout the ages.  She was portrayed as a hideous, hateful creature to be feared and scorned.  Thinking further about the mythology surrounding her, I decided I didn’t like the characterization.  According to Medusa’s Wiki Page, “The Gorgon was made out of the terror, not the terror out of the Gorgon.”

She was born out of a need to guard against the unknown, a talisman, a “ritual mask” used to battle against “evil” forces.  I have long thought her misunderstood and purposely mischaracterized.  “She is in a word a mask with a body later appended…”  Medusa represents the horror of female anger to some feminists, a thing to be ridiculed and hated.  She is in fact a symbol of power and strength, otherwise why use her image as a form of protection?

As I read further, I decided to reclaim not just her visage, but her essence.  She is a representation not of physical strength, but that of the intellect and the soul.  Medusa is to be respected for her original purpose: a source of strength and courage to those operating in a world they did not understand and therefore feared.

…and so it begins