***Content Warning: Image of placenta***
Medusa doesn’t usually come up in conversations about fertility goddesses (or in her case, demi-goddess). She is known as a protectress but because of how her powers were used, they are often misinterpreted as solely being battle tools. The misunderstanding of Medusa’s protective feminine power is the result of modern society’s spiritual and emotional disconnect with our bodies – especially the act of giving birth.
Medusa’s Head = Placenta
The placenta is what protects the fetus from being attacked by their mother’s immune system as a foreign body. It filters out certain toxins that the mother absorbs from being absorbed by the fetus. It’s job is protection.
Many different traditions around the world also associate the placenta with protection on a spiritual level. They view and honor the placenta as the fetus’s guardian angel, their first friend, their spirit double, their life force. They often engage in rituals (varying widely by culture) to lay the placenta to rest. Some West African traditions take this so seriously that they believe a disturbance to a person’s placenta burial can even cause sickness.
So what does this have to do with Medusa?: This is essentially how her powers work.
Medusa’s head protects people the way placenta would: Blood from her head births and heals wounds, like placental tissue does. Her gaze halts those who come into her path from interfering, like placenta’s immunological barrier within the mother’s body. And just for good measure, if you’re still having doubts on the symbolism – when Medusa is decapitated, Pegasus and Chrysaor are birthed from her head – similar to how how placenta is ejected after giving birth. (There’s a lot of birthing from heads in general surrounding Medusa and Athena, which I find interesting.)
left image: excerpt from Placenta: The Forgotten Chakra by Robin Lim
right image: Placenta pictured with two Gorgoneia. Do you see a resemblance?
Medusa’s Snakes = Umbilical Cord, Axis Mundi
The umbilical cord is a physical manifestation of our connection to the spirit world. Once an infant is released from their umbilical cord, they become physically disconnected to their placenta and their mother. The child goes from constantly receiving input from their mother – their inner worlds inseparable – to being able to develop their own individual ego once the child leaves the womb. Up until that point, the umbilical cord is the conduit for information totally inaccessible to the fetus. Anything from the outer world is all being filtered through the placenta and transmitted through the umbilical cord.
Similarly, I think of axis mundi as giant “neuron pathways” (figuratively speaking) that send messages between dimensions (between the heavens, earth, and elsewhere). As if the universe were one big brain. Trees, mountains, even dreadlocks are all examples of axis mundi – there’s a reason why these things are often associated with wisdom and enlightenment.
For Medusa, I think of the snakes on her head as similar conduits for extradimensional information. Snakes are another axis mundi symbol, and a potent one at that. (For more on this, I highly recommend the book Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge by Jeremy Narby.)
In my opinion, this is why Medusa has god-like powers after her transformation despite being a mortal. Medusa receives knowledge and powers from other dimensions through the umbilical cords on her head – her snakes.
This is also why she births through her head instead of her womb like a mortal. I suspect this has to do with the idea of birthing through the lower chakras (the root and sacral chakras, i.e. the corporeal) versus birthing through the higher chakras (the crown, i.e. the spiritual)
images courtesy of MagicalRecipesOnline.com
Fixed Star Algol and the Spirit World
One of the most interesting things I’ve learned as a birthworker/doula is how transitional labor (right as the body prepares itself to push the child out) is the period of time when both the infant and the birthing person are standing in the hallway between the world of the living and the dead. Whenever you hear stories of women talking to deceased relatives during childbirth – transitional labor is when it happens. This liminal space between birth and death is highly sacred; it is the passageway of life. Here is where life is brought into existence or extinguished.
The energy of the fixed star Algol, also known as the Demon Star or Medusa’s Head, reminds me of transitional labor. I think of Algol transits as direct messages from the spirit world physically manifesting on earth.
Algol represents primordial “dark” feminine energy: that which dismantles to rebuild anew. The same way that both the mother and child are totally transformed after the experience of childbirth – that’s Algol energy.
Algol has a reputation for violence and destruction. Many astrologers view Algol transits as bad omens because upheaval is sure to follow (see the recommended reading below for more info on Algol’s transits throughout history). Purification through destruction is a marker of feminine or yin energy. This aspect of femininity is often misunderstood as bad or evil. When in actuality, it (and by extension, Algol,) allows what is festering and bubbling under the surface (like a pregnancy) to be purged (birthed). Whenever Algol transits brought forth war and violence, it happened because war and violence were already brewing.
Why Medusa, Algol, and Birth is Feared
Change – death and rebirth – is inevitable, but the illusion of control over these things provide false comfort. Views around these topics are very connected to the way reproductive rights are always being threatened worldwide. These themes are often feared because being a physical vessel to bring forth life or death is so powerful that many can barely comprehend its magnitude, despite the fact that it’s actually a very mundane thing.
That which can’t be controlled, is feared.
Recommended Reading for Caput Medusa/Algol’s Patterns
The Horror-Scope of Algol by Nick Kollerstrom