THE HERSTORY OF THE GODDESS

© 2009 Monte Farber & Amy Zerner

The worship of either the Great Mother Goddess or God the Father and the desire to predict the future are as inseparable today as they were when woman first conceived of a Supreme Creative Force. The Judeo-Christian Bible is based on prophecies and their fulfillment; Mohammed is also known as the Prophet; and the immense population of China has the philosophies of Confucianism and Taoism as the foundation for their ethical and legal systems, both of which are based on the I Ching, or Book of Changes, the oldest oracle system known.

The conception of a male Supreme Being found in these and other patriarchal religions so permeates nearly every aspect of present-day culture that it is easy to assume that things have existed this way since the dawn of time. Yet there is growing evidence that the concept of the Supreme Being as a male is a relatively recent development.

To understand the herstory of the Goddess we must return to an earlier time, when God was a woman.

Our distant ancestors lived in a world more dangerous and stressful than we can imagine. Fierce animals threatened them every day. They were completely dependent on the forces of nature for their survival. Our species was able to survive and prosper not only because of growing intellectual abilities but because we were able to grow emotionally as well. To do this, our ancestors needed desperately to feel a bit of the security they had felt as children in their mothers’ arms. Life would have appeared meaningless and hopeless without it.

Their daily connection to the cycle of birth, life, and death suggested that there was a force that had given birth to the Heavens and to the Earth and all who lived upon it. They wanted to communicate with this force and obtain its protection and guidance. It was obvious that life issued forth only from the female of every species. Logic as well as growing historical evidence indicates that when people first prayed to the Supreme Being who had created their world, they worshipped her as the Goddess, Mother of All Things.

The earliest carved image found thus far, known as the Venus of Willendorf, is thought to be a devotional statue of the Goddess. This small stone figure is of a pregnant woman with large, nurturing breasts and, like many ancient images of the Goddess, no feet.

The Goddess’s pregnant form symbolized the fertility our ancestors needed in the form of children, a plentiful supply of the animals they depended on for food, and the fertility of the Earth (which gave them edible plants, water, and shelter from the elements). The Goddess’s missing feet are thought to be symbolic of her inseparable connection to the Earth.

It is not hard to imagine our ancestors creating these devotional art objects as a means of establishing a personal connection with the immense, unpredictable forces that so dominated their lives. They must have prayed for the ability to predict the change of the seasons and the return of the migrating herds so that their survival might better be ensured.

Their prayers were literally answered by the Moon. Unlike the unchanging Sun, the Moon changed shape every night. The first conception of time came with the realization that there was a predictable pattern to these changes. Every twenty-eight days the Moon changed from being completely absent to being completely full. Every thirteen moons—or months, as we now call them—the herds returned from their migrations, and every three months and seven days the seasons could be expected to change. It was no wonder that the Moon, as the creator of time itself, was glorified throughout the ancient world as the symbol of the Goddess—the Creator, Preserver, and Destroyer of Life—while the Sun was universally regarded as her consort and child.

The waxing Moon was seen as a slender maiden, a young huntress with a curved bow. The full Moon was viewed as a rounded, pregnant woman, mature and full at the moment of her greatest capacity to give life. The waning Moon was seen as an older woman, mysterious and wise, bearing knowledge of the death that was to come in the blackness of the new Moon and the reincarnation that would inevitably follow.

The already exalted nature of the childbearing female of our species was greatly amplified when it was first realized that a woman’s “magical” menstrual blood began to flow every twenty-eight days—the same period as the Moon’s cycle.

Women were held sacred (from the Latin sacer, meaning “untouchable”), as nothing less than living symbols of the Goddess. Women enjoyed a privileged status that enabled them to make many discoveries from their observation of the natural world. It is thought that pottery, herbal medicine, agriculture, the domestication of animals, astrology, and even religion itself may have been the discovery and the exclusive province of women. Tribes and clans were ruled by matriarchs in families and societies whose gender-based roles and customs bore little resemblance to those we take for granted today.

This form of social organization lasted for many thousands of years. There is evidence that war was virtually unheard of when women first ruled. This peaceful period lasted up until the time when the success of the agrarian, Goddess-worshipping, matriarchal societies produced large populations. As larger groups of people dwelt together, their occupations became more diverse and specialized. The working of the Earth no longer seemed such an intimate part of daily existence. Commerce and trade became more important, and the simplicity of a life that sought only the basic needs of existence gave way to new pursuits.

The needs of the less materially successful tribes, cities, and nations started to be met by conquest and not by the hard work, technological advancement, and general cooperation of the sexes that had characterized the civilizations that had worshipped the Goddess. As conquest rather than defense became an important societal goal, more power came into the hands of the aggressive males who had not been allowed equal access to the mysteries of pottery, agriculture, medicine, religion, politics, and other “women’s work.” Male gods were slowly allowed to share the aggressive qualities that had previously been the province of the Goddess (in the form of the Warrior Goddess, defender of the tribe). The worship of these new, fierce, and unforgiving warrior gods justified and sanctified the wars of conquest.

Until then, the myths associated with any male gods had largely reflected the role played by the men chosen as “sacred king” by the ruling, semi-divine queen of the tribe. They were made king, acting as consort and protector to the queen, for as long as she wanted them to be. They were removed, sometimes violently, at her command.

Naturally, some men resented this treatment and desired to enjoy the privileges of leadership uninterrupted. The imbalances between women and men that had been allowed to develop in matriarchal societies backfired when the sacred kings and their fighting men, emboldened by the warrior gods to fortify their courage, extended their conquering to the temples of the Goddess herself.

For many centuries, the forces of the Great Mother Goddess and the Warrior God clashed furiously with each other. The more violent ways that were at the very heart of the patriarchal religions and the men who fought for them enabled them to suppress worship of the Goddess and usurp her myths, rites, and nearly every other aspect of the old ways—at least officially. Since all the teachings of the Goddess were based on the desire to live in harmony with Mother Nature (the form of the Great Mother Goddess that has survived to this very day), the result caused a fundamental separation between man and nature that has created countless problems for millennia.

There is much in the teachings of the founders of the patriarchal religions that is the equal in goodness and power to the teaching of the Goddess. However, much suffering and the deaths of countless millions could have been avoided had the proponents of the various patriarchal religions not decided to wage the first and bloodiest “brand-name war” to ensure that theirs was the only religion allowed.

The fanatical proselytizers of the patriarchal religions made it their business to erase all worship of the Goddess, Mother Nature, and natural energies, especially sexual energies, by branding them as pagan (from the Latin pagus meaning “country”). The simple country people were tied to the natural cycles of the seasons. They knew the reality of life and death, the natural plants and potions that preserved the former and postponed the latter, and they had no use for the fantastic pronouncements of the patriarchal religions that they saw as usurping their power to live their lives as they saw fit. They resisted these fanatical proselytizers, but they could not defend themselves and the old ways against the religious extremists who used the most ruthless methods imaginable, inventing the Devil, the idea of an everlasting Hell, the living Hell of the Inquisition, the slaughter of nonbelievers, and the persecution of witches and midwives, which persists to this day.

Luckily, they were never completely successful in eliminating the ancient wisdom. The old ways of the Goddess took refuge in midwifery, herbal healers, witchcraft, the Tarot cards, astrology, and alchemy. All the practitioners of these ancient arts faced death for trying to keep this knowledge alive.

To make the new patriarchal religions acceptable, the “mothers” of their founders were made semidivine. Women were also glorified as nonhuman objects of the romantic love of men. In truth, everyday life for women became anything but romantic. Because women had formerly been viewed as earthly manifestations of the Goddess herself, the suppression of her religion was echoed in the lawfully decreed and religiously sanctified domination of women by men.

By thus denying the equality of the spiritual significance of women and men, alienating people from their sense of unity with the divine in themselves and nature, and violently suppressing all studies and teachings that did not agree with their dogma, the patriarchal religions did much to bring on the Dark Ages, from which we are now still emerging.

The influence that centuries of male-dominated religions has had on all of us can be easily seen in many of our fundamental assumptions about ourselves and our world. For most people, the word God invokes the image of an all-seeing, all-knowing, all-powerful Supreme Being, while the word Goddess implies a quaint myth of antiquity, of little importance to our everyday experience.

The phrase used in the opening paragraph of this chapter, “when woman first conceived of a Supreme Creative Force,” sounds presumptuous, even to most women. But substitute the word man for woman and it will be accepted without question. You may think it just a literary convenience, but it is a reinforcement of the culturally subordinate position of women to use the word man to identify our species as a whole. It is symbolic of woman’s plight today. This and innumerable other daily reminders have helped to rob generations of women of their birthright as truly equal partners. Growing up in a culture dominated by men, from God on down, has produced a level of conditioning that is so insidious as to be almost invisible, even to most women. The belief that “man was created in God’s image” leaves many women feeling vaguely uneasy, resentful, or downright angry at their situation. Men would not dream of putting a nearly all-woman government in a position to tell them what they could or could not do with their bodies, their lives, or their children’s lives. Yet this is the daily experience for most of the world’s female population.

It should be remembered that until the twentieth century, women were not allowed to vote in the United States of America and were in fact legally regarded as the property of their husbands. Far worse is the fact that the situation today, for billions of women around the world, is not much better than that suffered by women in the Middle Ages. The problems that now threaten our very survival as a species may well be the cumulative result of centuries of war fought, not between nations, but between the sexes.

The One Goddess became many, split into the various facets of women’s needs and cultural interests. Today these manifold goddesses have not completely disappeared; they have become absorbed into each woman and man. They are the internal archetypes that live deep in our subconscious.

Inside us, women and men, dwell Hekat the High Priestess, Artemis the Healer, Atlantia the Revolutionary, Freyja the Creator, Romi Kumu the Activist, Diviana the Nurturer, T’ai Yuan the Soul Mate, Aphrodite the Enticer, Pasowee the Tough Businesswoman, and many, many more. They are all there to be called upon to help us weave our life’s tapestry.

While these attributes represent the importance of one theme or one course of action, remember that they are all unique expressions of the One Goddess. It is even more crucial to remember that just as all the goddesses that have ever existed are merely individual expressions of the One Goddess, all the gods and goddesses ever worshipped are merely symbols of the unnamable Force that created and continues to create everything. To impose a gender on it is to make it more comprehensible and accessible. We are all children of these same loving parents.

From GODDESS,GUIDE ME!: Divine Wisdom for Your Head, Heart, and Home by Monte Farber & Amy Zerner/Farber Editions, Ltd. ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Internationally known self-help author Monte Farber’s inspiring guidance and empathic insights impact everyone he encounters. Amy Zerner’s exquisite, one-of-a-kind spiritual couture creations and collaged fabric paintings exude her profound intuition and deep connection with archetypal stories and healing energies. For nearly thirty years they’ve combined their deep love for each other with the work of inner exploration and self-discovery to build The Enchanted World of Amy Zerner and Monte Farber: books, card decks, and oracles that have helped millions answer questions, find deeper meaning, and follow their own spiritual paths.

Together they’ve made their love for each other a work of art and their art the work of their lives. Their best-selling titles include The Chakra Meditation Kit, The Animal Powers Meditation Kit, The Tarot Discovery Kit, True Love Tarot, The Enchanted Tarot, The Instant Tarot Reader, The Enchanted Spellboard, and many others. Visit their Website: www.TheEnchantedWorld.com