Ancient Her-Story by Annelinde Metzner

Lately I’ve been rereading and refreshing myself with important books of the Great Goddess.  Three books at a time! I would switch off, chapter by chapter, among  When God Was a Woman by Merlin Stone, When the Drummers Were Women by Layne Redmond, and one that had remained overlooked on my shelf, Sanctuaries of the Goddess, The Sacred Landscapes and Objects, by Peg Streep (1994.)  I’ve been immersed in the knowledge of 30,000 years of honoring and worship of women’s bodies and the Great Goddess. When I got to Chapter 7 of Peg Streep’s well-researched book, “The Goddess at the Peak: Crete,” I was blown away with the evidence we still have, in art, architecture, religion and culture, of a highly advanced society, full of life and joy, where women were central to all life. With my mind, my heart, my intuition and my sense of past lives, I’ve attempted to place myself there, before any influence of patriarchy.

Knossos                                                    

The day I found you,
ancient Cretan city of empowered women,
joy-filled center for the Goddess,
dolphins in your lush red-blue-green frescoes,
art above all, in your visions and in your lives,
an all-encompassing love of the Mother’s natural world,
your days charged with human connection,
erotic, open, free, adoring,
my life was forever changed.
I remember those days!
A pinnacle of being within the Womb-Mother,
men and women filled with Her love,
ceremonies of drumming, music and dance,
energy rising for Life Herself.
How clearly I remember you now.

Ancient Her Story  

Like the Sleeping Goddess, dear one,
sleep, dream and remember.
You were there! when first we humans
lived, gathered, made art,
and worshipped the body of Woman.
Place of regeneration, the holy Womb, the Vulva,
icons of the miracle of life,
She was imaged in the bull’s head,
the spiral, the rose,
the sacred cave of rebirth we carry still.
In your dreams, go back, go back,
‘way before the dank and moldy history books
that erased us.
Leap like the dolphins on the frescoed walls
of the ancient temples by the sea
where Women were free.

Snake Goddess                                          

Snake Goddess!
How the women of the tribe
held their breasts high and proud,
symbols of Your generous love.
“Never despair! Regenerate!” cry Her snakes,
carefully laying out the long skin of their molting
for all to see.
“Do not forget me!” Her divine face warns,
at home with birth and death,
familiar with all the secrets.
“Do not be ignorant of me!”
She calls across the ages,
like a beacon, a clarion call, a prophetess,
like an ancient howling in the night.

Let Me Know This  

Let me know this, our Mother-
that once we stood tall, once we danced,
once we ruled in women’s favor
and we advanced civilizations.
Bright were the colors we wore
as we bared our breasts,
our very bodies worshipped by all,
full of magic.
Let me remember honoring by women and men,
our wombs and our bodies sacred, exalted.
Let us play once more the rhythms, the chants
we joyfully brought to Your altars then,
once in this Earth life,
a thousand years ago, and a thousand more,
and a thousand more.

Annelinde Metzner
July 17, 2023