For Women Who Desire to Become
Empowered Elders of Age and Wisdom

The figure of the Corn Mother filled almost the entire picture, giving her an expanded sense of presence. From the top of the Corn Mother's head, a crown of corn tassels shot into the sky. I was told that the tassels on the corn plant were considered male.

As I hesitated trying to decide just what color to use for this tassel crown, don Lupe came over picked up a ball of red yarn and handed it to me. As color was applied to form, an image began to be shaped of the Corn Mother standing rooted, open and connected to the stars, to the corn, to her prayers, to her offerings, to the messages from the gods and to her journey toward completion, with bright red sexual energy contained within the male section of the corn radiating out of the top of her head.

There was a time when I traveled with a relative of dona Guadalupe’s (dona Guadalupe de la Cruz Rios was my primary research participant). This family member was a very well respected male shaman and yarn painter by the name of don Guadalupe Gonzales Rios.

During a ceremony at don Lupe’s rancho don Lupe gave each participant a blessing and imparted to each “his secret" with feathers swiped over our heads, shoulders and hearts.

That night, I watched the events around the circle unfold with great clarity.

There, lying on my sleeping bag watching the fire, I had this strange feeling as if I was standing with arms stretched out wide. Both my feet felt planted firmly on the ground while my expanded being hovered over the proceedings. 

As I felt my body hovering with outstretched arms, I said to myself, "Oh, my heart is open. This is how it feels." 

There was this incredible sense of freedom, of being open, receptive, clear and connected with everything: the stars, the trees, animals, the fire and the people present..

Back at his house in Tepic after the ceremony don Lupe began putting wax on boards and drawing pictures in the wax for his students who would then apply colored yarn to the images on their individual paintings.

I suspect that more was going on than people merely learning to make yarn paintings.

Huichol literature I have read speaks of shamanic symbolism used in their art that is thought to effect the outer world in real ways. For instance, women trap deer in the snare of their looms. As the design of the deer appears on the loom it is believed the soul of the deer is captured. 

Perhaps don Lupe put learning snares in his drawings that would then be transferred to the student as she or he worked with each figure applying the yarn.

I hadn't thought all this through at the time when I asked if I too, even though I was not an official student, could learn to make my own yarn painting. Don Lupe agreed and covered the small board I had selected with wax and drew a single female figure in the center of the board. 

I knew immediately that the figure was a representation of myself. For confirmation I asked don Lupe who the figure was.

He said, "It is you. It is the Corn Mother."

It could not have been a more perfect representation of how I had seen myself and how I had felt my energy during our most recent ceremony.

My experience with don Lupe and the yarn painting was several years ago. The broad research question which had taken me to Mexico was, “What is the value of old age for women and of old women to society?”

At the time, my research of the literature had informed me that in almost every culture it is the Old Woman who stands at the portals of life and death as the midwife and funeral priestess. Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes, I learned, considered the Wise Old Woman in the psyche or soul to literally “save lives.” To continue in ignorance and rejection of her is to weaken and eventually destroy the fertile cycle of our lives.

My attention had been focused on Takutsi Nakawe, Grandmother Growth, the creatress of the Huichol universe with her staff symbolizing her power and old age. Why I wondered had don Lupe drawn The Corn Mother?

As I began to research the history of The Corn Mother I learned that many cultures around the world from Northern Europe to the Americas have a Corn Mother.

Native American Indian legends tell of The Corn Mother sacrificing herself so that her people could have life. According to her instructions, in one legend, she was to be killed, her dead body dismembered, strun among the fields and planted.

In harvest ceremony after harvest ceremony the last sheaf of corn was gathered together and dressed in women’s clothing.

This Corn Mother doll was referred to as The Old Woman, The Old Grandmother, Old Wife or even The Great Mother. To assure a plentiful harvest The Old Corn Mother was given to a family for safe keeping until the next growing season began and the cycle of birth, growth, death and rebirth continued.

As I looked further into what I had learned about the archetype of the old woman, I realized that the power of the “Old Woman” is her ability to embrace change, her willingness to give birth to her Old Self, to make friends with her death and trust in rebirth.

The spiraling in and the spiraling out of this life cycle over and over and over again in a never ending process of fertility and renewal IS the dance of The Great Mother: The Wise Old Woman...The Corn Mother.

Susun Weed in an article entitled Sacred Corn Mother tells us that Kore or Korn, which is the ancient word for "grain" is the oldest of all goddess names. Her name varies with cultures -- Ker, Kern, Kirn, Kore, Core and Kali .and dates back to Ancient Greece and the Eleusinian mysteries. I knew that these mysteries centered around the story Demeter and her daughter Persephone, also known as Kore, but it wasn't until I read Weed's article that I made the connection between the mysteries and corn. 

Of course, it becomes clear when you consider corn to be the staff of life. In Homer's story Demeter brings a drought and famine to the land . She will not allow the sacred Korn to grow until her daughter is returned to her from the underworld. According to Weed the great Eleusinian mystery is "an ear of Korn." "Corn and grain are magic. The one becomes many. That which dies is reborn."

But what I love most in Weed's article is the statement that the Ancients considered the light within each of us to be "the Kore, core, the soul, the seed of each being."

She, the Corn Mother, is the essence of what I have been compelled to learn and now to pass on. She, because she who has lived this fundamental cycle of change through her own body, through the entire cycle of life, becomes the guide who lights the way.

This is the destiny of every woman who chooses to accept the call.

Photo Credit: Guadalupe stirring pot of Tejuino (fermented corn beer) Photo by Sondra Fields.

Weed, Susun, Sacred Corn Mother -- As seen printed in Mystic Pop Magazine, www.mysticpopmagazine.com, 2008