Goddessing: A Goddess / Pagan Blog

On Sunday, we had our first taste of the annual local delicacy: Wisconsin sweet corn. If I were an anthropologist, I'm sure I could paint the correct word picture, but let me just tell you: the natives anticipate it, have (secular?) festivals dedicated to it, tell fond stories about it from their youths, go searching for it at farms and roadside stands that pop up out of nowhere this time of year to sell many vegetables under their We Have Sweet Corn signs, and delight in instructing the non-native on how to properly prepare it: it's best if you get a pot of water boiling in the fields, but if you have to use your stove in your kitchen, it's the same technique: drop an ear of corn in boiling water for just a few seconds, then eat it.

I can attest: local sweet corn in season is very different from that stuff you get all year long in freezer packages at the grocery store. It's tender, and there's truth in advertising: it's sweet.

Corn, as you may know, is actually a generic term for all kinds of grains. When I lived in France, the natives were appalled that Americans ate corn (of course, they ate their popcorn with sugar, which I found appalling). But here, I'm not talking about corn as a generic grain. I'm talking maize.

And truthfully, habit makes this former Texan reach for butter to sweeten and soften it, but I've learned to stop myself, or at least go with great moderation to the butter dish. This corn is sweet and soft in itself and butter just makes it heavy.

Corn is doubly topical, because I'm editing an article that refers to grain goddesses, and briefly to Chicomecatl as a "Great Grain Mother." Though not related to the article, I asked myself the question: Yes, but what season is She associated with? Thus, a few (no many) minutes spent feeding at the Great Information Food Trough: the Internet.


The Maize deities of MesoAmerica are amazing. The image at right is courtesy of Fabrice Mrugala. According to the Mexican Museo del Templo Mayor site: Chicomecoatl. Goddess of foodstuffs, sustenance, and thus she was the most important patron of vegetation, presiding over the maize cult. The name of Chicomecoatl is translated as "Seven-Serpent". Her cult is very ancient. The ceremonies dedicated to this goddess were celebrated in the month Huei Tozoztli, which means "prolonged fast", during which altars in homes were decorated with maize plants and in temples its seeds were blessed.

OK, so Chicomecatl was celebrated in April-May and shows up in a seasonal (July-August) article. Happens all the time. We pagans sometimes want to make the world fit into our constructs, and the world makes that hard on us. Yes, Lammas -- the Celtic holiday we neopagans are preparing to celebrate -- is a celebration of grain, of the first harvest. And so we write about deities of grain now, sometimes forgetting that just pinning them to the Lammas tail of our Wheel of the Year donkey doesn't make them properly associated with a Celtic God (Lugh) and the feast day He instituted for honoring and celebrating His Foster Mother and Queen (Tailtiu).

More about Lammas, Tailtiu, and queenship before the month is over....

Permalink posted by Sage -- 3:48 PM.

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