Once, in a sculpture garden, I heard a young child ask her mother “Why is she naked?” when she was looking at the statue of Venus (see below). The mother, blushing, had no answer. A casual reader of my novel, Johnny Talon and the Goddess of Love and War might ask the same question. I have an answer – you don’t get through hell by hiding behind your pretenses.
In our culture, nudity tends to represent two things: vulnerability and sensuality. This hasn’t always been the case. In the middle ages and early renaissance Europe, to be clothed was to be civilized, to be naked was to be wild. The further back in time we go, the less nudity was symbolic of anything. In the art of the ancients, you find many statues of people and the gods naked. While the Greeks and Romans used to portray the nudity of Aphrodite or Venus, they always the statue to show the goddess shy, the more ancient Assyrians and Sumerians didn’t. The goddess of Love and War wasn’t shy at all.
The statue above (the goddess Inanna, ancient Sumer) shows the goddess naked and powerful. She holds above her a weapon, not using her hands to hide any part of her body.
In my novel Johnny Talon and the Goddess of Love and War, I deliberately wrote scenes where the one character was naked. Sometimes her nudity was used by her seductively, sometimes it was used to show vulnerability, but other times to show her raw power. One of the many inspirations for this was the ancient myth of Inanna’s descent to the underworld where her sister reigns. In this myth, Inanna who wishes to visit her sister who is in mourning for the death of her husband: a death Inanna is responsible for, puts on her best clothes, wears makeup and carries with her the devices of her power. The authors of the myth spend much time on her adornment so the reader would understand how the goddess prepared to visit her sister. These are all stripped from her, one by one, as she enters her sister’s kingdom where she stands before her sister naked, is judged and killed. Three days later, resurrected, she emerges from the underworld but does not dress, does not put on makeup, does not take up her devices of power. She emerges from the underworld naked and powerful.
When we confront our own demons, especially the demons of addiction, we can’t hide behind any defenses if we are to emerge free of the ravages of our addiction. We must strip ourselves bare and become deliberately vulnerable and open to others about our addiction. When we emerge, we too find ourselves powerful, transforming ourselves so that our addiction has no more power over us. Often this is the journey of a lifetime, endlessly choosing health.
So why is she naked? She’s not hiding from her demons. Why is she naked? So that when she emerges, she knows that she didn’t need anything except her self and the support of those who care for her and supported her during her journey through hell.
Puns, wimsey, odd poetry and mystical romps 