Mythology Mondays - The Goddess of Healing

You may already have noticed that I haven't been around as much in the past week, not posting, not visiting blogs, not on Twitter. We've had some rather bad news this past week that will probably mean that I will continue to be online much less than I have been. I'll still be reading your blogs as much as possible and working to keep up with review obligations. Beyond that, I don't know how much I'll get to talk to everyone.That being said, this week I've been looking into the gods and goddesses of healing, of which all cultures seem to have one.

For the Greeks, that goddess is Aceso, the daughter of Epione and Asclepius (who, as one site said, was the main healer dude). Her sisters Hygeia and Panaceia.Asclepius was the god of healing and medicine. The rod of Asclepius, a snake-entwined staff is still the symbol of medicine to this day. The Greeks had a number of other gods that also held among their powers healing. Asclepius' Roman counterpart was Vejovis. Angitia was one of the Roman goddess of healing. If you look at both the Greek and Roman gods and goddesses associated in any way with healing, you'll note that most of the names are closely related to current medical terms.
 
In Celtic mythology, the goddess of healing is Brigid. She was also the goddess of fire, poetry and unity. Apparently the Celtics didn't have as many gods; they had to do double duty? She was said to be the daughter of Dagda, the great father-god of Ireland. Dian Cecht was Brigid's male counterpart.

Mesopotamians worshiped Nintinugga, goddess of healing and and Ninazu, god of healing. The Hindu twin gods of medicine were Ashvins. For the Egyptians, it was Bast, whose totem was the cat, and whose image you are probably familiar with.

Once again, I'm surprised, although I don't know why, that there were so many other cultures with such active systems of gods and goddesses. Given what I learned last week about mythology, it's only natural that peoples all of the world would have turned to myths, gods and goddesses to explain the world around them.