G'day all,
This is an article that comes from a Native American Indian / Pagan view point & I enjoyed it so, I thought I'd share it here. I found it in a magazine titled "Branches" out of Indianapolis, Indiana - www.branches.com .
Ancient Memory
by Diana Ensign
"The process of the cultural change is along and difficult one. The laws, the language, the economic and social system do not yet reflect our vision. We are discovering and creating myths and symbols and rituals that do. We need images that move us beyond language, law, and custom; that hurl us beyond the boundaries of our lives to that space between the worlds, where we can see clear."
~ Starhawk (The Spiral Dance)
From where is the feminine emerging; what led to her subjugation; and what is prompting her re-birth?
Merlin Stone's classic book "When God Was a Woman" explores the ancient Goddess religion and how religion reflects our attitudes toward women. As she says, "Though we live amid high-rise steel buildings, Formica counter tops, and electronic television screens, there is something in all of us, women and men alike, that makes us feel deeply connected to the past." Stone studied female images dating back to 25,000 BCE - Goddess figures unearthed across Europe and Asia and from Spain to Russia.
She writes, "In the beginning, people prayed to the Creatress of Life, the Mistress of Heaven. At the very dawn of religion, God was a woman. Do you remember?" Of course, the widespread burnings of women, the creation of a male God who represents authority, punishment and revenge; the writing of a new Holy book; and the celebration of state-sponsored religious holidays all did much to wipe out our collective memory - although there are some women and men who have made valiant efforts to keep our connections to the past alive.
Starhawk, in "The Spiral Dance", writes, "Spirituality and politics both involve changing consciousness." She adds, "The feminist movement has prompted the culture as a whole to re-examine questions of maleness and femaleness. For the definitions are no longer working. They are oppressive to women and confining to men. In this process of transformation, the Goddess and the Old Gods can open doorways for us into new dimensions of our own possibilities, for they are not just symbols but channels of power. Yet, we must also be willing to examine how our own interpretations have been shaped by the limitations of our vision."
If we want a new consciousness, we have to be honest about what we have done to the feminine, to the planet and to each other. We have to be mindful of words such as "Goddess", "Witch", and "Mother Nature". To allow Goddess into our vocabulary and to understand the ancient feminine symbols - and then to look, all across the globe, at the destruction done to women, men, children and the planet in the name of "RELIGION" - is to begin to understand why we must change our thinking.
Z Budapest writes in "The Holy Book of Women's Mysteries": "Each time we talk about the Goddess, what we really mean is LIFE - life on earth. We always recognize, when we say "goddess", that she is the life-giver, the life-sustainer. She is the Mother Nature." She says that it is the Mother who carries the children. Female and male in the Mother's womb; female and male in her religion as well. ...All male-god worshipping religions which have no life force represented in the form of the Female Principle of the Universe end up being exclusive." She notes that "nine million women, men and children were burned alive in Europe to rid the land of the last vestiges of nature religions and gain the property of the accused. To the eternal shame of the Christians, nobody stood up to stop this 300-year massacre. Even today, there has been no calling for an accounting of responsibility around this issue."
So why concern ourselves with the feminine, the witch burnings, the co-opting of religion to satisfy political ends? To change our path, we must understand how we got here. Understanding requires knowledge. From there, we move forward. We make choices. We decide what is sacred: the feeding of children, the trees in the yard, the sun in the sky. We no longer let others decide for us what is moral and we do not hand over moral authority to anyone who does not respect the sacredness of all of life on this planet. We learn not to play homage to a war God of revenge.
As Starhawk says, "Mother Goddess is reawakening, and we can begin to recover our primal birthright, the sheer, intoxicating joy of being alive. We can open new eyes and see that there is nothing to be saved from, no struggle of life against the universe, no God outside the world to be feared and obeyed, only the Goddess, the Mother, the turning spiral that whirls us in and out of existence, whose winking eye is the pulse of being - birth, death, rebirth - whose laughter bubbles and courses through all things and who is found only through love: love of trees, of stones, of sky, and clouds"
;
This is an article that comes from a Native American Indian / Pagan view point & I enjoyed it so, I thought I'd share it here. I found it in a magazine titled "Branches" out of Indianapolis, Indiana - www.branches.com .
Ancient Memory
by Diana Ensign
"The process of the cultural change is along and difficult one. The laws, the language, the economic and social system do not yet reflect our vision. We are discovering and creating myths and symbols and rituals that do. We need images that move us beyond language, law, and custom; that hurl us beyond the boundaries of our lives to that space between the worlds, where we can see clear."
~ Starhawk (The Spiral Dance)
From where is the feminine emerging; what led to her subjugation; and what is prompting her re-birth?
Merlin Stone's classic book "When God Was a Woman" explores the ancient Goddess religion and how religion reflects our attitudes toward women. As she says, "Though we live amid high-rise steel buildings, Formica counter tops, and electronic television screens, there is something in all of us, women and men alike, that makes us feel deeply connected to the past." Stone studied female images dating back to 25,000 BCE - Goddess figures unearthed across Europe and Asia and from Spain to Russia.
She writes, "In the beginning, people prayed to the Creatress of Life, the Mistress of Heaven. At the very dawn of religion, God was a woman. Do you remember?" Of course, the widespread burnings of women, the creation of a male God who represents authority, punishment and revenge; the writing of a new Holy book; and the celebration of state-sponsored religious holidays all did much to wipe out our collective memory - although there are some women and men who have made valiant efforts to keep our connections to the past alive.
Starhawk, in "The Spiral Dance", writes, "Spirituality and politics both involve changing consciousness." She adds, "The feminist movement has prompted the culture as a whole to re-examine questions of maleness and femaleness. For the definitions are no longer working. They are oppressive to women and confining to men. In this process of transformation, the Goddess and the Old Gods can open doorways for us into new dimensions of our own possibilities, for they are not just symbols but channels of power. Yet, we must also be willing to examine how our own interpretations have been shaped by the limitations of our vision."
If we want a new consciousness, we have to be honest about what we have done to the feminine, to the planet and to each other. We have to be mindful of words such as "Goddess", "Witch", and "Mother Nature". To allow Goddess into our vocabulary and to understand the ancient feminine symbols - and then to look, all across the globe, at the destruction done to women, men, children and the planet in the name of "RELIGION" - is to begin to understand why we must change our thinking.
Z Budapest writes in "The Holy Book of Women's Mysteries": "Each time we talk about the Goddess, what we really mean is LIFE - life on earth. We always recognize, when we say "goddess", that she is the life-giver, the life-sustainer. She is the Mother Nature." She says that it is the Mother who carries the children. Female and male in the Mother's womb; female and male in her religion as well. ...All male-god worshipping religions which have no life force represented in the form of the Female Principle of the Universe end up being exclusive." She notes that "nine million women, men and children were burned alive in Europe to rid the land of the last vestiges of nature religions and gain the property of the accused. To the eternal shame of the Christians, nobody stood up to stop this 300-year massacre. Even today, there has been no calling for an accounting of responsibility around this issue."
So why concern ourselves with the feminine, the witch burnings, the co-opting of religion to satisfy political ends? To change our path, we must understand how we got here. Understanding requires knowledge. From there, we move forward. We make choices. We decide what is sacred: the feeding of children, the trees in the yard, the sun in the sky. We no longer let others decide for us what is moral and we do not hand over moral authority to anyone who does not respect the sacredness of all of life on this planet. We learn not to play homage to a war God of revenge.
As Starhawk says, "Mother Goddess is reawakening, and we can begin to recover our primal birthright, the sheer, intoxicating joy of being alive. We can open new eyes and see that there is nothing to be saved from, no struggle of life against the universe, no God outside the world to be feared and obeyed, only the Goddess, the Mother, the turning spiral that whirls us in and out of existence, whose winking eye is the pulse of being - birth, death, rebirth - whose laughter bubbles and courses through all things and who is found only through love: love of trees, of stones, of sky, and clouds"
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