3
The Goddess in Herstory
FIRELIGHT CASTS DANCING SHADOWS as Paleolithic artisans etch and paint their mythos on a cave wall. The murals in their holy place depict beasts, trees, and the mysterious silhouette of a woman. Small figurines of anonymous goddesses with exaggerated features are buried within the innermost sanctums to accompany their supplicants to the grave. These earliest of artistic endeavors capture the essence of the Divine Feminine—the Great Goddess—as she was worshipped in prehistory.
Long before the rise of patriarchal monotheism, female deities were known and loved the world over. Many claims have been made about a universal religion that worshipped a singular deity, the Great Goddess. Though these ideas are contested by many academics, there is sufficient evidence to point to a near-universal adoration of the Divine Feminine in one form or another by our ancient ancestors. There are even linguistic similarities among the names of many of the most beloved goddesses of the world; for example, Isis, Auset, Ishtar, Inanna, Nana, Nuit, Nut, Anat, Asherah, Astarte, Attar, and Hathor.1 These similarities indicate a common ancestor for these myths. Today, passionate worshippers of the Goddess as well as feminists, magicians, and healers continue to draw inspiration from the distant past when the Goddess reigned supreme.
To truly appreciate how the Divine Feminine manifests in the mineral kingdom, let’s first examine a brief history—or perhaps we should say herstory—of the Divine Feminine.
DIVINE ANCESTRESS OF THE ANCIENT WORLD
Among the earliest pieces of art are primitive renderings of the female form in stone, bone, and clay. These small statues are generally regarded as the first representations of the Great Goddess; they are called “Venus figurines,” after the Roman goddess. (See the photograph.) These statues date from the Paleolithic era; the oldest known was found in 2008 in Hohle Fels Cave, in present-day Germany.*4 This statue is carved from bone, and it has been carbon-dated to between 35,000 to 40,000 years old, making it 10,000 years older than previously discovered Venus figurines.2 These figurines have been found in many parts of Europe, and they share several features—namely, exaggerated sexual and reproductive characteristics such as large breasts, buttocks, thighs, and vulvas, as well as highly schematized faces and arms. Many of these carvings exhibit an extraordinary amount of care given to the features and symbols rich with meaning—all of which flies in the face of the notion that “primitive” people carved them.
Why is it that these female figures are so often interpreted as being goddesses? Perhaps it is the lack of male representation in the art of this period, which suggests that there was something distinct, even divine, about femininity. Early societies may not have understood the causal link between sexual intercourse and procreation, thus it was understood that only woman could bring new life into the world, since there was no means of tracing or acknowledging paternity. Given this perspective, matriarchy would be the natural order. For this reason, the earliest societies (as well as many indigenous peoples up to the present day—for instance Native American tribal peoples) were certainly matrilineal, where lineage is traced through the maternal line.
The Venus of Willendorf is thought to be a representation of the Great Goddess. She is carved from oolitic limestone and tinted with red ochre. (Wellcome Collection, CC BY)
Although usually characterized as personifications of motherhood and fertility, the most ancient goddesses in history were many-faceted. Marija Gimbutas writes,
It is inaccurate to call Paleolithic and Neolithic images “fertility goddesses,” as is still done in archaeological literature. Earth fertility became a prominent concern only in the food-producing era; hence it is not a primary function of the Goddess and has nothing to do with sexuality. The Goddesses were mainly life creators, not Venuses or beauties, and most definitely not wives of male gods. The other prevalent general term for the prehistoric divinity is the “Mother Goddess,” which is also a misconception. It is true that there are mother images and protectors of young life, and there was a Mother Earth and Mother of the Dead, but the rest of the female images cannot be generalized under the term Mother Goddess They impersonate Life, Death, and Regeneration; they are more than fertility and motherhood.3
Goddess worship was complex, even tens of thousands of years ago. Ancient peoples sought to understand the mysteries of life, death, and rebirth through the mythic cycles and symbols of the Divine Feminine. These early peoples honored the Divine Feminine by carving the likenesses of their goddesses into geologic materials such as limestone and clay or painting or etching them on the stone walls of natural caves and cliffs. Stone was the natural medium for depicting the Great Mother, for her silhouette and symbol can be witnessed in the layout of the land. Rolling hills are her pregnant belly, and mountain peaks her breasts.*5 Wells and springs are her flowing milk and menstrual blood, while caves, both natural and man-made, are her sacred womb. Thus pieces of stone are pieces of her very body, and ancient peoples would have revered rocks and stones as gifts of their divine ancestress, the progenitrix of all life on our planet. Like the Great Goddess herself, stone is eternal.
OUT OF ONE, MANY
The Hermetic teachings, the religious, philosophical, and esoteric tradition based on writings attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, describe seven principles or axioms. The first, the principle of mentalism, says that all creation is the result of divine mind—referring to the creative void or the cauldron of chaos. Out of this cosmic principle all things are born. Initially, what we see expressed in early religious beliefs is the nearly singular figure of the Great Goddess. Eventually, the Divine Feminine began to be explored in her many facets, such as in her roles as mother of life and mother of the dead—this is the fourth Hermetic principle, the principle of polarity in action.
All things have a dual nature in our relative world. To appreciate day, we must experience night; the same is true for hot and cold, wet and dry, above and below, earth and sky, life and death. These polarities were applied to the Great Goddess, resulting in myriad expressions of the Divine Feminine. Since the Divine Feminine is an unlimited force beyond the comprehension of our finite perspective, giving the Great Goddess (and the God, for that matter) individual expressions makes her more approachable. Janet and Stewart Farrar express this in The Witches’ Goddess: “The Goddess herself is both infinitely simple and infinitely complex, unknowable in her totality, at least at our present stage of evolution.”4 In this way, the Goddess came to be expressed in local variations, as the patron of sacred wells and holy trees, or the personification of various other aspects of life and nature. We see this same movement from singular divinity to a pantheistic or polytheistic view of divinity throughout the world. The various polarities embodied in each facet of the Divine are given their own personalities, mythos, and missions. Over time, each deity manifests more fully as a being in its own right.
A SON IS BORN
The Great Goddess, in exploring her own polarity, eventually creates an opposite, a complement to her own femininity. In some myths she separates the light from her own darkness, and from her cosmic womb is born her son, the God. Since early humans may not have understood the relationship between coitus and conception, many myths of divine children are centered around parthenogenesis, or virgin birth.
The Hermetic teachings give us another important principle, the seventh: the principle of gender. Although the principle of polarity includes duality in all material forms, the principle of gender concentrates on one important pair of opposites, that of masculine and feminine. This principle tells us that everything that emanates from the divine mind exhibits gender in one form or another, with most of creation exhibiting both masculine and feminine energies at once, although in varying proportions. The Great Goddess fulfilled the need for expressing the Divine Masculine by giving birth to her son. Mythic cycles in many cultures depict the young God growing to maturity and becoming the lover of the Goddess. He is often shown aging or being sacrificed too, such as in the myths of Adoni, Attis, Tammuz, Damuzi, Osiris, and Baal5 (note the linguistic similarities among many of these names). Later, this image of the Mother Goddess and her divine child was carried over into the popular iconography of many religions, notably as Isis and Horus, and later, Mary and Jesus.
Isis and her son, Horus, carved in schist (Photo by Robert Valette, CC BY)
Initially, there is no evidence of a father figure in the religious practices and artifacts of the Stone Age. The Goddess reigned supreme, even when her consort, the God, was introduced. Gradually, cultures began to apportion various aspects of nature and human life to these two primal deities. For example, matters of reproduction, both human and animal, fell within the purview of the Goddess, while the God ruled over hunting and game animals. Even though not every culture assigned the same roles to the Divine Feminine and Divine Masculine, there are certain trends that point to the archetypal roles of the Divine Feminine (which are explored in greater detail in chapter 4).
DETHRONING THE GODDESS
Over time, some groups of people began to elevate the worship of the Divine Masculine, giving primacy to a central God form, usually a god of the sky or storms, mountains, or war. This shift took place around 2000 to 3000 BCE, when warlike Indo-Europeans roamed throughout Europe, bringing their sky gods and warrior gods with them. This change corresponded to a shift from hunter-gatherer societies to more organized agriculture. As cultures clashed, there was a marked decline—sometimes a disappearance altogether—of traces of the older matrifocal societies, as evidenced by the dwindling number of temples, cult tools, and symbols of the Great Goddess, as well as an overall reduction of her images in religious art.6 As the Indo-Europeans conquered ever more new lands, their religious beliefs and symbols spread far and wide.
The overall shift in focus from worship of the Goddess alone, to polytheism/pantheism, and ultimately to a masculinized God-centric worship was a gradual process. Gimbutas writes,
This transformation, however, was not a replacement of one culture by another but a gradual hybridization of two different symbolic systems. Because the androcentric ideology of the Indo-Europeans was that of the new ruling class, it has come down to us as the “official” belief system of ancient Europe. But the Old European sacred images and symbols were never totally uprooted; these most persistent features in human history were too deeply implanted in the psyche. They could have disappeared only with the total extermination of the female population.7
This mix of cultic symbols and myths produced hybrids between the systems, such as the militarization of certain goddesses like Athena/Minerva, as well as the inversion and misrepresentation of old myths under the new regime. As human reproduction became better understood, myths were rewritten to include the Divine Masculine element. Soon the Great Mother could only conceive new life with the help of the God. This shift provided an opportunity to stress the importance of paternity, thereby conferring authority to men. Imposing restrictions on the worship of the Goddess, even demonizing her, fortified the power of male authority figures. Part of this process included the rewriting of old myths, to cast the Goddess into the shadows. There are several analogous myths in which the symbols of the Great Mother are demonized, especially her supreme emissary of regeneration, wisdom, and sacred sexuality—the serpent.
We find ample evidence of male deities conquering serpentine figures representing the Goddess throughout the ancient world. The Mesopotamian storm god Marduk slew Tiamat in Babylon, while Apollo, Greek god of light, defeated Python at Delphi. Biblical tradition too records the serpent in Eden as being responsible for tempting Eve, thereby engendering the Fall and the concept of sin, while older stories of the great beast Leviathan are memories of the Canaanite personification of the primal sea (like Tiamat) being slain by the storm god Hadad. These serpent figures represent the unknowable mysteries of the Divine Feminine embodied in the deepest waters and darkest caves, themselves symbols of the Great Mother’s womb. Even our word python is taken from Greek mythology; its root ultimately comes from a Proto-Indo-European word for “cavern,” “hollow,” and “depths”—likely the same source as the word pit. These symbolic and linguistic connections imply that the ancient world revered the innermost parts of our planet as the domain of the Great Goddess in her telluric or chthonic aspects.
These darker, more mysterious aspects of the Divine Feminine were the first to be vilified. The denigration of the Goddess soon encompassed her popular forms when Ishtar/Astarte*6 became the demon Astaroth (or Ashtaroth). It is often said that the gods of the old religion become the devils of the new one; thus the old Goddess became the archetype of the witch and hag; she was temptress, harlot, and succubus. Finally, with the onset of monotheism via the Abrahamic faiths of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, the once great and shining Goddess was consigned to darkness.
THE GODDESS IN DISGUISE
With the spread of Christianity, worship of the old deities was exorcised to make room for Christ. Some sects, such as those that still celebrated the mysteries of Isis, maintained their hold for some time before eventually succumbing to the juggernaut of Christianity. However, the common folk managed to maintain their connection with the Divine Feminine in the form of the Holy Virgin Mary, God’s mother. Church officials no doubt figured that the familiar face of the mother of the divine child may have encouraged conversion from the old pagan religions to the new form of monotheism, since it permitted people to continue adoration of their Mother Goddess under the veneer of Christianity.
Even now there are many parts of the world where the worship of Mary seems to supersede even that of Christ himself, such as in the developing countries in Latin and South America, some of the last places in the New World to be conquered by Christianity. Mary was given the formal title Theotokos, “Mother of God,” at the Third Ecumenical Council, held in 431 CE in Ephesus—ironically, a place once home to the cult of the Great Goddess. Where the new religion of Christianity spread, solace was found in Mary’s maternal qualities, which could be syncretized with local beliefs about goddesses far and wide. For this reason, Mary has been connected with “life-water and miraculously healing springs, with trees, blossoms, and flowers, with fruits and harvests.”8
Mary and Christ carving at Nôtre Dame de Paris
In addition to Mary, the Mother of God, certain sects of mystical Christianity, mainly the Gnostics, have venerated Mary Magdalene; she is considered to have been a priestess of the old Goddess religion and historically may have been the consort of Jesus. Her iconography has been borrowed from goddesses such as Isis and Cybele, and it is possible that some miraculously discovered statues of the Virgin are actually images of older goddesses that have been painted over with Christian symbolism. Other female saints have been popularized and adored by millions worldwide; they are beloved for performing miracles—not unlike those of the Great Goddess. By transferring some of the role of the Great Goddess and her many facets to the female saints, the current of the Divine Feminine wound its secretive course through Christendom and has managed to survive to the present day.
When pagan religions succumbed to monotheism, the archetypal roles of the Divine Feminine were stowed away in myth and legend, where they could hide in plain sight. Goddesses of local lands became the shining maidens, fairy queens, and wizened hags of folk and fairy tale alike. Many of these stories are watered-down, Christianized portrayals of pagan myths, and they are rife with magickal imagery. The Goddess assumed the role of healer and wise woman, witch and evil stepmother. Consistent with the Church’s demonization of the Goddess and her pagan followers, these mythic and folkloric figures often serve as the antagonists in fairy tales. Magick, nature, and the old pagan religions may have been shrouded in fear and misunderstanding, but their symbols lived on, even as the Goddess went into hiding.
Occasionally, the Great Goddess of the past can be found in the disguise of her animal emissaries. In story and art alike, we see beasts sacred to the Divine Feminine as recurring themes. Birds, in particular, are sacred to many goddesses—and gods—and appear throughout myth and legend. Feathered totems of the Goddess include owls, crows, ravens, and songbirds. Dogs, sacred to Hekate, are often associated with liminal journeys in folklore, and may portend death. Famously, snakes represent the mysteries of the Great Mother, and they have perhaps received the most villainous treatment in the arts. Pigs, horses, cats, spiders, and mice are also among the many animals by which the Great Mother disguised herself in order to remain ever-present but just out of sight.
Vestiges of the Great Goddess are ensconced in art, architecture, literature, language, and culture. Goddess figures that could not be suppressed were assimilated into the ever-changing monotheistic societies in new ways. Sacred sites of old became the locations of new Christian churches. Surely the stone walls were impregnated with the energy of adoration of the Great Mother, and this helped the Goddess remain in the hearts of her supplicants, even if the rites and symbols changed over time.
Suppression of the Divine Feminine is not unique to the Abrahamic faiths. We see the shift from goddess worship to more male-centric worship happening around the world. In Egypt, goddesses were supplanted by gods with analogous roles. Throughout Asia, Buddhism, with its focus on a male role model of enlightenment, displaced local goddesses, while some strains of Buddhism incorporated local deities and added female bodhisattvas such as Kuan Yin and Tara in order to provide examples of the Divine Feminine.
THE REBIRTH OF THE GODDESS
There are several cultures around the world in which goddess worship has continued uninterrupted for millennia. One prominent example is Hinduism, where the Rig Veda, a Hindu scripture, declares feminine energy to be the essence of the universe, that which creates all matter and consciousness, both eternal and infinite. Aboriginal peoples in Africa, Asia, Australia, Oceania, and the Americas have also managed to preserve the Divine Feminine in art, song, dance, and oral tradition. However, most communities around the world witnessed the displacement of the Divine Feminine at one point or another in history. Nevertheless, the Goddess is still alive and well.
In the last few centuries power has generally shifted from absolutist monarchies and religious states to focus more on themes of liberty, tolerance, and progress. Many of these ideals were typified during the Age of Enlightenment. During this era, which stressed reason and science, a resurgence of classical themes appeared in the arts. Ancient gods—chiefly those of the Greco-Roman pantheon—became the muses of the arts, appearing in sculpture, painting, literature, theater, and music. On a recent trip to Paris I saw these deities everywhere, not merely on display in museums, but also on buildings, fountains, and bridges. Popular figures include Diana/Artemis, Medusa, Psyche, Minerva/Athena, and many others. Though renderings of these goddesses may not have been strictly religious in nature, their appearance certainly heralded a shift in the attitude toward women and signaled the return of the Great Mother. Once again, the many faces of the Great Goddess were being carved into marble and other stones, crystallizing the Divine Feminine not only in physical form, but also in the hearts and minds of people everywhere.
Around this same era, ideals of virtue, liberty, and justice were personified as woman. Robert Hieronimus and Laura Cortner explain this phenomenon in their book The Secret Life of Lady Liberty:
The long-standing artistic tradition of allegorizing virtues as women is ultimately explained by Latin grammar, which assigns feminine gender to these nouns. In addition to Liberty, the following virtues are others that have traditionally been depicted in female form: faith, hope, charity, prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance. Romanticizing virtuous ideals as feminine also worked to enforce the codes of conduct for the perceived ideal woman, who was encouraged to faithfully uphold moral principles for the benefit of her sons and husband.9
It is from this tradition that we derive the Statue of Liberty as well as the representation of Lady Justice (who originates from the Roman goddess Justicia, or Iustitia), who is blindfolded and holds a scale and is commonly seen at courthouses today. These ideals are stand-ins for goddesses in the modern era—beacons of the Divine Feminine for our times. The shift to honoring and personifying these virtues as feminine set the stage for the emergence of the women’s movement in the twentieth century, along with a rebirth of interest in the Goddess in the Western world.
THE DAWNING OF A NEW AGE
Renewed interest in ancient wisdom came in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The rising importance of occult and esoteric traditions was in part guided by strong female leaders like Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Annie Besant, Alice Bailey, Dion Fortune, and many others. Their efforts, combined with the activities of other mystical orders such as the Golden Dawn, which valued and even ordained women, primed the path for the renaissance of the Divine Feminine.
The twentieth century also witnessed a renewal of interest in witchcraft and paganism. The genesis of these movements is a continuing story, one beyond the scope of this book to examine at length. Suffice it to say, traditional strains of witchcraft have emerged, many claiming to have ties to pre-Christian religio-magickal practices. These religions stress the value of the Great Goddess and her relationship to the Great God, for in nature neither principle exists without the other. These goddess-worshipping sects have empowered women and men alike, helping to honor and elevate the status of the Divine Feminine in the modern era. Traditional forms of witchcraft have influenced countless more emerging groups. As the importance of feminism has grown all over the world stage, so too has it blossomed in the magickal world. New varieties of the craft have emerged that have reestablished the primacy of the Great Mother, honoring her many forms as the One Goddess. Organizations such as the Covenant of the Goddess arose to provide tools for networking and strengthening the community of worshippers of the Divine Feminine the world over.
At the same time, it seems that more conventional religions have a growing impulse to honor the Divine Feminine. Some Christian and Jewish sects have even seen the ordination of women in the twentieth century. Similarly, the Divine Feminine has grown in prominence and popularity in the metaphysical scene. Goddesses great and small have been adopted as teachers, guides, and ascended masters, to lead humanity into the next golden age. It’s not surprising that so many women, more so than men, are drawn to metaphysical circles.
At the intersection of science, spirituality, and the expansion of human consciousness, we are witnessing the rise of eco-spirituality. If planet Earth is viewed as the body of the Great Goddess, then the preservation of the world’s ecosystems has become a spiritual as well as a social and political imperative. Feminist spirituality is often closely linked to ecology; respecting the environment is at the fore of the practices of many witches, healers, magicians, and metaphysically minded people today. Even more conventional science has begun to support these philosophies via the emergence of environmental science, the Gaia hypothesis, and deep ecology. Green lifestyles, recycling, and demands for organic produce are entirely mainstream today, and they all help us honor and respect the Earth Mother.
TOWARD THE FUTURE
The Goddess is alive and well. Her role in human evolution has never been more relevant, for we cannot move forward as a species without correcting the imbalance in power and justice, especially between men and women. The time has come for the human race to elevate the station of women across the world, thereby honoring the Divine Feminine and bringing us into balance with Earth and all her beings.
It is my belief that rocks, minerals, and gemstones are facilitating the return of the Great Goddess. The mineral kingdom is perhaps the oldest abstract representative of the Goddess; though perhaps she can be seen more concretely in all living things, and the very planet on which we live is made mostly of stone. Stone has factored into the adoration of the Great Mother since prehistory. Humankind has known her in the ancient rock and clay carvings of the Stone Age. We have felt her presence in the sacred mounds, hills, and rock structures that embody the essence of the Divine Feminine on the sacred landscape. We see her in chapels, wells, and cathedrals erected from stone. She has been glorified in marble statues in many ages, from the classical world to the present day, and we will continue to honor her in our art and architecture into the future. And in the realm of crystal healing, the Goddess makes her presence known as discoveries of new rock and mineral formations that are named in her honor, with stones such as Rosophia (a form of granite), Isis calcite, witch’s finger crystals, and Blue Tara quartz.
The impulse to seek and know the Divine Feminine has never disappeared, although she has changed forms over millennia. Moving forward, the face of the Great Goddess will continue to reveal herself in all that we do, and by embracing her we can undo much of the damage done to the world around us. Honoring the Divine Feminine—alongside the Divine Masculine—permits us to heal the rift among peoples around the world and can help us restore health and balance to our broken world.