In a world where Goddesses swim at the center, what role should male gods play?
In his fine comments re: my March 11 post, Mandos suggests that male gods should somehow relate to the male role in procreation.
But is this really a top-notch, primo role for guy gods? Could there be better roles? If deities are models for how we want to treat each other, the earth, and everything on it, what male god would be best?
1. The Mother Goddess’s lover?
2. Mother’s hubbie?
3. Mother’s son?
4. Mother’s friend?
5. One who helps Mother care for and protect the kiddies?
6. One who watches over the community and keeps it safe?
7. A Dionysian-type dude in charge of good times?
8. All of the above?
9. None of the above?
Of course there’s no getting around it: since daddy-war gods such as Jehovah, Allah, Yahweh, Zeus and others punched most of our good male gods into the dust long ago, we are forced to find new ones.
Personally, I think which gods we settle on should rest on what kinda world we want to live in.
For example, among the marriage-less Moso of China, the main male god is not the Mother Goddess’ hubbie, but her lover -- ‘cause the Moso put marriage in the same category with the 24/7 ingestion of red-hot, skin-dissolving chile peppers.
But among the daddy-war-god ancient Greeks, the main guy-god had a wife he treated like the floor of a pigpen.
And the early Indo-Europeans’ main god was a dirt-bag who incested his daughter, Usas, Goddess of the Dawn.
So unless we are dying for incester, rapist, and child-molester men, or dudes who’d rather slice rice all day than marry, I’d suggest we avoid gods such as the above.
But floating around out there are lotsa fine dude-gods with “pick me, pick me!” written all over them. Some of my fave are the helper, guardian and protector gods. Take Koyote of Native American fame, for example, or Faivarongo of the Polynesian Tikopia, or Tokoyoto of the Koryak of SE Siberia. And then there are Osande, the elderly guardian god of the Ovimbundu of SW Africa (Angola), and Tanuta, also of the Koryak, and guardian of the earth, plants and animals.
A great old Chinese child-guardian god, Chang Hs’ien, is sometimes shown aiming an arrow at the earth-threatening dog star, Tien Kou (Jordan,
Encyclopedia of the Gods, p. 54).
And then there’s the Aztec Huehuecoyotl, “god of sexual lust,” as author Michael Jordan puts it in
The Encyclopedia of Gods.
So, zee qvestion of zee veek, liebchen, eeze, “What other dude gods model the kinda human dudes you’d like to see walking the earth today?”
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Thnx to aeroporc for the foto; go
HERE to see a close-up and more of aeroporc's work.
With the Goddess, punishment’s out, teaching’s in. 
