Goddess was her original title, it was printed as such in a paper pamphlet distributed at the time of her unveiling. She is our Lady Liberty, her full name, “Liberty Enlightening the World.”
We have many other Goddesses of America. The Indigenous (Native) peoples Goddesses. And the Goddesses whom were carried in the suitcases and hearts of immigrant men and women.
Lady Liberty was created by a French sculpture who grew up by the sacred rivers of the Celtic Goddesses, including Sequana, Goddess of the River Seine. Both Liberty and Sequana wear a crown, symbolic of the sun. Liberty was a gift from our French brothers and sisters, it was 1886, a time when America had just emerged from the civil war.
Lady Liberty is a “beacon of promise” for all who arrive to the USA. She holds the promise of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. She welcomes us with these words:
“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
the wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
And indeed she lifts a lamp with her right hand, giving us light. In her left hand she holds our constitution. A pledge for democracy.
The Goddess is the divine feminine aspect. The Goddess is our rivers, springs, volcanoes, mountains, forests, Earth herself. When the Christian Church marched onto the lands of the Celtic druids, they perceived Goddess as a threat to their power and they condemned her. She was demonized, dismissed, and belittled into fairy belief and myth. To cut her out, and bury her, the Christians’ proclaimed her as evil or fiction. Under Christianity, Goddess was demoralized and destroyed. Well, almost.
Lady Liberty personifies the divine qualities of liberty, justice, independence. Lady Liberty has what in times of old would be called a “feast” day, a day of recognition and remembrance on July 4. We celebrate with pies and picnics and fireworks in the night sky.