TOP DOG PRESS

Father God vs. Mother Goddess: 

A Few Distinctions

by Skian McGuire

    The Father God is stern but loving, smiling benignly on his strong white sons, with their square shoulders and their firm, clean-shaven jaws. He is strict about things like sex and lying: sin is sin. He expects obedience, but he'll usually forgive you if you ask nicely. He favors brownnosers. Everything goes on your permanent record.

     The Mother Goddess is not so single-minded.  She is indulgent and forgetful, extravagant and capricious. She favors skin a thousand shades of brown and pink and mahogany; she thinks large, hooked noses are beautiful, so are broad, flat noses, as well as small pert ones. Hair of all kinds pleases her, the more the better, on every part of the body. Most of her warm-blooded children have it all over them; why should humans be any different? She absolutely dotes on curves, love-handles, jiggles and folds, and makes sure that people acquire these attributes as easily as possible. She also likes wrinkles. A lot.

     As for sin, ehhh. She’s too busy cooking up new nebulae and simmering a stew of hydrocarbons on some yellow star’s closer planets. She just doesn’t have time.

     The Father God loves right angles and parallel lines, hospital corners on beds you can bounce a quarter off of, geometrically precise goose-stepping, well-dressed lines, and smart salutes. Neatness counts, except for the mess his soldiers leave behind. Boys will be boys.

     Chaos theory was invented by the Mother Goddess. So were elliptical orbits, belly dancing, and lava lamps. She prefers self-cleaning systems and doesn’t mind dust bunnies, but if you mess around in her kitchen, you might get your hand slapped. Think Love Canal. Think Bhopal.

     The Father God smiles on everybody’s Mother Country, everyone’s Fatherland. He’s on their side. The Mother Goddess, on the other hand, tends not to recognize artificial boundaries and political divisions. With her, everything is Location, Location, Location.

     The Father God prefers solid colors and sensible shoes. He likes men in uniforms. For women, he approves of underwear that is white, sturdy, ugly, and bristling with hooks and eyes. He accepts pantyhose as a necessity and has even begun to appreciate their built-in inviolability. The Mother Goddess is crazy for prints and textures, bangles, beads, frills, trims, and adornments of every kind. She loves accessorizing. Tattoos? Yes. Piercings? Yes. Make-up? Yes, yes, yes! She likes colorful, unique outfits on both men and women; after all, look at her birds, all the cardinals and goldfinches and orioles, and peacocks. She doesn’t see why cosmetic surgery is necessary, didn’t she make you beautiful as you are?  Other than that, the sky’s the limit. And underwear might as well be fun.

     The Father God loves lists, numbers, precise measurements. He is not daunted by complicated feats of engineering or tricky chemical transformations. Parting seas, demolishing fortifications with soundwaves, burning shrubbery that ends up none the worse for wear; these are things he can do before breakfast and still have time left over for issuing commandments, neatly numbered one through ten. Cubits, generations of begats, the hairs on your head – all numbered.

     The Mother Goddess throws in a dash of this, a pinch of that. She can take things in and let them out, and that looks about right, now, dear, doesn’t it? Geologic time is her metier, never mind this “world in seven days” stuff. The names of most of her creations are writ in water, if they ever had names at all. Naming was the job the Father God assigned to Adam; the Mother Goddess thinks it was just busy work. She figures, if she forgets something, she’ll just whip up a new one.

     The Father God approves of modular homes, suburban housing developments, and high-rise housing projects for the poor. He doesn’t mind mansions as long as they are well-maintained, preferably by hereditary household retainers. He takes, or so it seems, a passing interest in mobile homes, since he has given so many of his faithful to dwell in them, but perhaps this is only because he finds them so entertaining to fling whirlwinds at.

     The Mother Goddess bestows upon her beloved children of all species a world of building materials to choose from, but her favorite is stone. From hollowed-out caves of stone supplied to their dwellers ready-made, to fieldstone that constantly replenishes itself in every tilled field, she clearly dotes on it. She has put her stamp of approval on projects as great as Stonehenge and as small as burial cairns, all unimaginably durable despite their haphazard appearance.

     From representational art and lite beer (the Father God’s choices) to abstract impressionism and homemade wine (the surprise for the wedding at Cana was her idea), there are many, many things the Father God and the Mother Goddess will simply never agree on. He says tomato, she says, plum! Cherry! Beefsteak! Roma!  He likes locusts; she’s the one with the passion for beetles. He approves of hard-back chairs and slipcovers for upholstery, especially the clear vinyl ones that stick to sweaty thighs (that’ll show people who choose to wear short-shorts). She’s happy with deep moss, or tall grass patted into nests, or cushions on the floor. He’s fond of the tobacco industry, agribusiness, and gene mod; he thinks the world of Bt Corn. She always goes organic. Even so, the universe could be big enough for both a Father God and a Mother Goddess. There’s plenty of room. If only the Father God weren’t so jealous. If only he weren’t so insecure.

     Back in the beginning, the Masculine Principle knew how to have a good time, always randy, always ready to cavort among the nymphs. Wine that flowed like water, singing and drumming and dancing ‘til dawn. He was so gallant then, willing to die for her and be reborn. Then, it was standing stones and gaily skipping youngsters who wove ribbons round the Maypole; now it’s missile silos. But of course, he was always fascinated by toys.

     He’s just an overgrown child, the Mother Goddess thinks, with his moods and his temper (forgetting that she herself has been known to be changeable as the moon). In a universe full of frozen planets and dying red suns, they are both very young. And they have so much in common. He might like to take credit for those funny hairless apes, but she was the one who gradually brought them into being, tiny change after tiny change. The list of things they share a fancy for would be just as long as the things that make them different. Dogs, for instance, and pottery. Horses. Wintergreen. Things that glow in the dark. Fireworks, alcohol, and crowds: they love a party. Both the Father God and the Mother Goddess have always doted on Ireland. They’re just opposite sides of the same coin, really.

     It’s his turn in the limelight now. Once, she was the deity everyone worshipped. Now she’s all but forgotten, but it won’t always be this way. Someday her children will remember the important things – like, sex is supposed to be fun, and there’s room enough for everybody to be different. That they have to clean up after themselves. That she loves them all and wants them to stop fighting. But she can wait. The Father God gets so worked up; he can’t just stand to let things happen. If there’s one difference between them that really matters, this is it. The Father God just has to meddle, and what good has it ever done? Not her. The Mother Goddess, her middle name is patience. Someday, it will be her turn again.

     Just wait and see.

	

 

Ó Skian McGuire 2003