Medusa Awakens: Stone, Serpent, and the Sacred Return of the Feminine

FEATURE ON JOSEPH JASKOLKA: SCULPTOR OF MYTH AND STONE, ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON MY PATREON

She has waited in silence.

For years, this stone sculpture by Joseph Jaskolka—a sacred embodiment of Medusa—lay dormant, hidden in plain sight, like a truth buried too long. Forgotten, perhaps, but not gone. Time itself had not yet aligned. The hands that shaped her had once paused, uncertain, until life—like myth—unfolded with chaos and initiation, as if she herself demanded to rise only when the moment was ripe.

And now she emerges, in the year of the Snake, when skin is shed and illusions crumble. A time when the feminine, long silenced, returns with serpents in her crown and stone in her belly. This sculpture is not an artwork—it is an invocation.

Medusa, the miscast one. Branded as monstrous by myth-makers, her story was twisted by fear, her power seen through the lens of conquest. But before the Greeks turned her into a terror, she was a priestess. A guardian of sacred rites. Her hair—serpents. Her gaze—transformative. Not a killer, but a revealer. She turned only those with violent hearts to stone. To others, she was the threshold. Now she returns to us in stone once again. This time, not in exile—but enthroned on the land.

She cradles her hands before her, and depending on where one stands, her serpentine tail curves inward to meet them—forming a perfect figure eight. The lemniscate, also known as the “infinity symbol”. The sign of eternity. Resurrection. Venus. The morning star. In Pythagorean numerology, the eight snakes that crown her head and the figure eight create the number 64—reducing to 10, the number of completion, of the Goddess herself. This is not a coincidence. This is cosmic choreography.

Crafted from crushed aventurine, her serpents shimmer with a subtle green heart energy—an emerald frequency of healing, luck, and renewal. Their scales shimmer with crushed green aventurine, the heart healer, the bringer of abundance, renewal and emotional restoration. Aventurine is a stone of quiet revolutions, one that restores the heart after betrayal and brings abundance to what was barren. Her fangs are clear quartz, the great amplifier—turning her intention into command. And her mouth, open in silent song, reveal carnelian: a womb crystal, red with the blood of beginnings. It speaks of courage, sexuality, and rebirth. These choices were not merely artistic. They are alchemical. 

Her face—solemn, quiet—evokes not terror, but reverence. She does not scream. She holds. She waits. Her gaze is one of ancient knowing. You can feel her watching not to judge, but to remember. She sees what has been done to women across millennia—goddesses turned to demons, priestesses cast out, bodies violated, power shamed.

This sculpture is for those who have been mistreated and abused. For the ones who’ve been called too much, too wild, too angry. For those whose truth turned to stone in their throats. For those who saw their lives collapse like the Tower in the Tarot—violent, necessary, and sacred. For those who now stand among the ruins, brushing off the dust of old lives, realizing that what broke was the prison, not the soul.

She is their guide. A snake mother in stone, saying: “Shed what no longer serves you. Let the old self fall away. There is something holier beneath it.”

Her return is no coincidence—for she brings a message whose time has come. Joseph, the artist whose hands shaped her, was drawn into her mythos unexpectedly when she called to him from the depths. And in that chaos, she rose—not as memory, but as prophecy. Her return signalled the beginning of a new chapter in his life reborn through the feminine. Through love. Through the sacred disorder that clears the way for the soul’s next becoming.

Now, awakened, Medusa stands on the land—a sentinel, a shrine. A living altar to the Dark Mother, to Sophia, to the serpent wisdom that coils at the root of all becoming. Her presence commands reverence. She does not seek to be owned, for the wild feminine cannot be possessed—only honored, only protected. Whoever comes to stand with her, to hold space for her, will not be a buyer in the ordinary sense, but a custodian. A keeper of the threshold. A protector of mystery.

She is here to remind us:

The feminine will not be silenced.

She lives now in stone and serpent, in quartz and carnelian, in the stillness of her gaze and the coiled readiness of her rebirth.

She whispers across the veil: remember, rebuild, resurrect.

And to those with ears to hear—
she calls.

Medusa is now seeking her guardian.

If you feel the stirring in your bones, the thrum of serpent wisdom in your spine, you may be the one.
She is not for sale.
She is awaiting her protector.
If you are called,
answer.

***

This article was written by Helena B. Scott, published author, medium, historian and lecturer at the London College of Psychic Studies (est. 1884) who wears many “hats” and specialises in secret history, symbolism and cultural heritage.  Her work, through archetypal psychology and mythopoetics, explores women’s mysteries, sacred myth, and the healing power of beauty and ancient energies of the land.

BIO – JOSEPH JASKOLKA

Joseph Jaskolka is a sculptor of myth and stone whose monumental stone works are rooted in ancestry, myth, and the memory of land.

Though not raised on the historic family farm in Connecticut, Joseph later returned to steward the land of his ancestors. His art draws from five generations of lived experience, loss, and restoration. Fusing the physicality of natural rock with visionary forms and the unseen currents of story, spirit and soul, Joseph creates archetypal figures that speak to the soul of place. His sculptures are not created, but awakened: archetypes long held in silence beneath the surface of the earth, called forth through grief, devotion, and listening. Each piece is a conversation with the past and a threshold into the timeless—bridging ancient wisdom, the trials of personal transformation, and the healing energies of place.  

Joseph attended Western Connecticut State University and his work has been exhibited publicly across the U.S., including at Kent, Connecticut, the Gerald Ford Museum in Grand Rapids, Michigan and at Saunders Farm in Garrison, West Point, New York and Washington State (San Juan Islands Sculpture Park). His monumental forms invite dialogue and sometimes disruption, challenging viewers through scale, symbolism, and the sacred weight of presence. Whether praised or provocative, his sculptures speak—to the land, to the ancestors, and to those who still remember how to listen.