The valley spirit dies not, aye the same;
The female mystery thus do we name.
Its gate, from which at first they issued forth,
Is called the root from which grew heaven and earth.
Long and unbroken does its power remain,
Used gently, and without the touch of pain.[28]
The symbolism of this short chapter is of special interest, and seems to throw light on the origin of the myths that were transformed by Lao Tze into philosophical abstractions. We find the “female mystery” or “abyss mother” is at once a gate (or passage) and a “root”. The Greek goddess Artemis was both. She was the guardian of the portals, and was herself the portals; she was the giver of the mugwort (the Chinese knew it), and was herself the mugwort (Artemisia), as Dr. Rendel Harris has shown.[29] She opened the gate of birth as the goddess of birth, her “key” being the mugwort, and she opened the portal of death as the goddess of death. As the goddess of riches she guarded the door of the treasure-house, and she possessed the “philosopher’s stone”, which transmuted [[313]]base metals into gold. Artemis was a form of the Egyptian Hathor, Aphrodite being another specialized form. Hathor was associated with the lotus and other water plants, and was Nub, the lady of gold, who gave her name to Nubia; she was the goddess of miners, and therefore of the Sinaitic peninsula; she was the “gate” of birth and death. The monumental gateways of Egypt, India, China, and Japan appear to have been originally goddess portals.[30]
The goddess of the early prospectors and miners was, as has been said, a water-goddess. In the writings of Lao Tze, his female and active Tao, “the Mother of all Things”, is closely associated with water. The chapter entitled “The Placid and Contented Nature” refers to water, and water as “an illustration of the way of the Tao, is”, Dr. Legge comments, “repeatedly employed by Lao Tze”.
“The highest excellence is like (that of) water. The excellence of water appears in its benefiting all things.”[31]
Lao Tze, dealing with “The Attribute of Humility”, connects “water” with “women”: