I'm amazed by and grateful for what's coming out of the ground. I don't mean much of the food that nourishes us, or the abundance of Spring blossoms and greenery, both of which I'm deeply inspired by and grateful for. I also mean deep Earth wisdom, and literal treasures that tell stories thought to be forever lost.
As the French writer, Emile Zola, wrote, ""If you shut up truth and bury it under the ground, it will but grow, and gather to itself such explosive power that the day it bursts through it will blow up everything in its way."
Well, bursting through it is, challenging the biases and assumptions of Patriarchal institutions and Empire -- including the ways that those very limiting and often life-negating biases and assumptions are woven into our own psyches, thought-patterns, beliefs, and habits.
Some of the deep-Wisdom treasures are exemplified by the Nag Hammadi library, a collection of writings discovered in upper Egypt in 1945, not to find their way to the public for decades. The texts, dated to the second-century AD , are thought to have been hidden away at a time when all non-approved writings were ordered destroyed. As is the case with many conquering cultures of Empire, there is great and often violent effort made to destroy all perspectives, teachings, and teachers/practitioners that run counter to the preferred story.
In the case of the Nag Hammadi gnostic (and other) texts thought to have been completely destroyed, along with their teachers, the eradication effort plunged the culture into the so-called Dark Ages - a regression, not a progression, and an arising of an almost pathological violence.
The effects of this loss of Wisdom have been staggering, and found their way deeply woven into the roots of contemporary culture (for one excellent perspective on this, see John Lamb Lash's work at Metahistory.org, and his book, Not In His Image).
Another example of Wisdom-rising is a wealth of archaeological evidence that cultures existed that were tolerant of diverse peoples and perspectives (including spiritual traditions), that were not organized around violence and warring, and that were inclusive of and sometimes organized around deep revering of and respect for the Feminine, women, and the Earth (see Riane Eisler's book, The Chalice and The Blade, for one summary of this). This directly challenges assumptions that men are inherently violent and that war is natural. Neither are true; both are choices, albeit ones many -- after generations of inculturation -- made unconsciously.
In other (and numerous) sites around the world, ancient figures and depictions of women, the Feminine, priestesses, shamankas, and goddesses are (or have been) springing up and meeting with a more balanced interpretation (just a few decades ago, a bias against the feminine -- stemming from deep Patriarchal assumptions -- resulted in immediate dismissal of such finds or perspectives, which, ironically, is not very scientific.). Thankfully, the evidence has mounted to a degree that's hard to ignore or dismiss with any credibility.
For example, in the most ancient shaman grave sites found, the buried shaman was female. This unravels previously held biases that shamanism was a man's domain. In fact, indicators are that the more recent masculine-focused traditions stemmed from earlier feminine-inclusive or feminine-centric traditions.
It doesn't mean 'women ruled' -- a common dualistic 'either/or' position, as in "if it's not patriarchal, then it had to be matriarchal, and if Patriarchy was violent to women, then a Feminine-centered culture would be violent to men." If anything, emerging evidence suggests strongly that even in Feminine/Goddess-centric cultures there was more of what Riane Eisler terms an 'equalitarian' way of being -- the more Feminine 'and/both' that honored Life, male and female.
The growing evidence of Feminine influence and participation does correct an ignorant bias favored in Patriarchal systems that women did not serve as religious or spiritual leaders, shamans, cultural leaders, and so on. This is important because it restores truth as well as balance to a culture in which the denigration of the Feminine (including the Feminine face of god) has resulted in violence and the denigration of women, girls, Wisdom, and Earth, and an amputation of men's Wholeness as well. These recoveries restore a vital Wisdom that has been left behind and is now essential for our survival and wellbeing.
The Earth, Wisdom, and her allies are revealing her treasures, because the times and the peril of them require a restored Feminine, a restored Wisdom -- not simply dug up and re-enacted, but reinterpreted for our times. Rather than this denigrating the Masculine and men, which many fear because it would be the 'either/or' of Patriarchy, it restores Wholeness to all - Earth, women, men, the Natural world - and makes possible a more whole, conscious way of being.
The great work and great calling of our time is to reconnect, remember deeply, and embody Wisdom, Divine Love, in the world once again.
Blessings,
Jamie
* Image of The Queen of Sheba, Artist Unknown
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