Guest Contributor

Image and Likeness by Dale Allen

I attended a beautiful women’s circle to celebrate my dear friend Gloria’s birthday recently. Each woman was invited to bring a sharing for Gloria – a poem, reflection, oracle card, song or dance – whatever felt right. Each sharing that day was not only a gift to Gloria, but to each of us.

I had met Gloria during the period of my life when I had written a play titled, “Dancers of the Dawn,” with a cast of seven women of different ages, shapes, sizes and colors. The play featured original music, drummers, myth, history, dance, even comedy for a sumptuous experience of the sacred feminine emerging in modern women. Gloria was a part of the women’s sacred circles that we co-created during that time – circles that continued for a decade and still retain heart-connections today.

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.

Celebrating Lammas in Troubled Times by Nan Lundeen

*Tallgrass Prairie at Fernwood Botanical Garden, Niles, MI*
*credit: Ron DeKett*

Lammas, that Celtic Earth-based spiritual tradition, has long been dear to me. Having grown up on an Iowa farm in the 1950s, I am accustomed to living close to the rhythms of the land. Gratitude for Earth’s first fruits comes naturally. The tradition calls for ritually baking a loaf from the first-harvested grain of the season, usually corn, and blessing it. It is a harvest festival and a time of gratitude and joy.

Future of Mifepristone by Winifred Nathan

Today is the one year anniversary of the Dobbs decision.

The alarm grows louder. How far will the antiabortion lobby restrict women’s reproductive health care before they are satisfied? If they successfully secure a complete abortion ban, will they stop? Or will they go on to control women’s dress, education, travel, etc.?

Reportedly, Dobbs v Jackson overturned Roe v Wade so the states could set the legal boundaries of abortion through the democratic process. But on November 18, 2022, the US District Court of Northern Texas delivered Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine et al. v US Fodd and Drug Administration et al., a decision that stops medical abortion in all fifty states by ending FDA approval of mifepristone. The Supreme Court has stayed (paused) the Texas order as the appeal works its way to their docket. Mifepristone continues to be available, but for how long? Will the Supreme Court eventually side with the plaintiffs?

The Legacy of the Goddess: Heroines, Warriors and Witches from World Mythology to Folktales and Fairy Tales by Rachel McCoppin

Part 2, Part 1 was posted yesterday

Chapter 4, “Monstrous Females and Ghost Women,” “traces the many female characters within folktales and fairy tales who appear as monstrous, materializing in the forms of giantesses, succubi, mermaids, rusalki, etc. Just as in many ancient myths, even though these monstrous women appear in folktales and fairy tales as hindrances to the quest of the hero, they ultimately serve to educate male heroes about the true meaning of their quest, which again often aligns with concepts associated with mythic goddesses. The many ghost women who appear in folktales and fairy tales around the world are also discussed in this chapter, as they often serve as agents to teach male heroes about how they, particularly as females, have been wronged by males or by patriarchal systems, and thus have been thwarted from completing their own heroic quests” (McCoppin, p. 9).

Though most myths around the world display male heroes partaking on heroic quests, and seldom focus on heroines who participate in their own heroic journeys, this is not at all the case with folktales and fairy tales, as hundreds of folktales and fairy tales portray strong, independent female heroines who indeed partake on their own heroic quests. Therefore, the second half of Legacy of the Goddess focuses on the formidable heroines found in many folktales and fairy tales from around the globe.

The Legacy of the Goddess: Heroines, Warriors and Witches from World Mythology to Folktales and Fairy Tales by Rachel McCoppin

This is part 1 of a two part posing. Part 2 will be posted tomorrow.

In this blog post, I would like to take the opportunity to discuss my new book, entitled: The Legacy of the Goddess: Heroines, Warriors and Witches from World Mythology to Folktales and Fairy Tales. This book argues that hundreds of folktales and fairy tales from around the world have preserved elements related to goddess worship from the sacred myths of many ancient civilizations.

Powerful goddesses were worshipped in most global cultures for centuries, until, in many regions, episodes of diffusion, conquest, colonialism, etc. caused the worship of these goddesses to be revised, lessened, or in some cases eliminated. To “preserve at least part of the reverence of goddesses, as well as the memory of the powerful religious and social roles women once held as representatives of goddesses”, hundreds of folktales and fairy tales were created, “told, and retold, most often by women storytellers” to impart goddess ideology (McCoppin, 2023, p. 5). Thus, many folktales and fairy tales portray myriad examples of powerful female characters who portray important messages connected to the goddesses and sacred women of ancient mythology.

Bathsheba: From Survivor of Sexual Abuse to Queen Mother by Linda Cooper Costelloe

Bathsheba by Artemisia Gentileschi, wikimedia commons, public domain

The image we have of Bathsheba is that of a scheming temptress. That’s the way she’s been portrayed in media, such as the 1951 movie, David and Bathsheba, and Leonard Cohen’s song, Hallelujah. She deliberately bathed on a rooftop in sight of King David. She caught his eye and he was helpless to withstand her charms. The Bible does not support that image of Bathsheba, however. It says that Bathsheba was used and abused by David, and God was displeased.

The Bible says that David was on his rooftop. It does not say where Bathsheba was, only that she was bathing to purify herself after her period (2 Samuel 11:2-4). She was probably in an inner courtyard. In their book, Flawed Families of the Bible. How God’s Grace Works Through Imperfect Relationships, David E. Garland and Diana R. Garland write: “The laws required ritual washing at the conclusion of her menstrual period. A woman would be highly unlikely to conduct such a cleansing from her menstrual period as a come-on. If she were in public view, she would have washed without disrobing. There is no reason even to assume that she was naked. Public nudity was not acceptable in this ancient Jewish culture but instead was considered shameful. There is no foundation for assuming she was some kind of exhibitionist.”ⁱ

A Poem for Enheduanna by Nan Lundeen

Cuneiform Tablet from Nippur, Sumeria
(Modern Iraq) 2300 – 2100 BCE
_{Mary Harrsch from Springfield, Oregon, USA,}
_{CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>,}
_{via Wikimedia Commons}

In beautiful synchronicity, I received an invitation to submit a poem to an anthology in the voice of a female-identified persona around the same time I first learned of Enheduanna. The first named author and poet was mentioned in my New Moon Womyn’s Circle. When I looked her up, I was flabbergasted. I am a poet, a feminist, and a long-time student of Women’s Spirituality, and yet the world’s first author—a high priestess who worshipped a female supreme deity, was unknown to me.

I learned that Enheduanna was a brilliant poet who wrote with majestic metaphors, who shared her emotions, and who grappled with concepts of the divine as a female supreme deity in and with nature, and with whom she experienced a personal relationship. She lived and wrote around 2300 B.C.E. Scholars say they do not have the specific dates of her birth and death, but they do know that she served as high priestess for 40 years at the city of Ur in what is now Iraq.

Hear Me! Redux by Winifred Nathan

She Said; He Said
And How
She won! He lost!

On May 9, 2023, in New York Supreme Court, “she said,” won. E. Jean Carroll was awarded a judgment of five million dollars in compensatory damages in her defamation and sexual abuse case against former President Donald Trump. YES, she won! He lost!

How did this happen?

The starting point is looking to a New York state change in its law regarding sexual assault. The assault took place in early 1969. Like many women, Ms. Carroll didn’t seek immediate legal help. She waited until 2019 to file a suit. Her explanation: at her trial, she opined, “I was born in 1943. Women like me were taught and trained to keep our chins up and not to complain.”

In November 2019, E. Jean Carroll did bring her first lawsuit against Donald Trump, which grew from his remarks when she accused him of sexual abuse. The suit was, however, limited to defamation. (Applicable statutes of limitation precluded any potential criminal action for sexual assault.) The Justice Department appealed the case.

Goddess Lost: How the Downfall of Female Deities Degraded Women’s Status in World Cultures by Rachel S. McCoppin; book review by Margot Van Sluytman

She Who Knows

What then is my repentance?
If not, by rote this repetition?
“Godde is.”
“Godde is.”
“Godde is.”
“Love.”
And my face tastes
The beating heart
Of the sun’s call
For reclamation of
SHE Who Is.
SHE Who Is: knows me.
She, who also, is.
©Margot Van Sluytman

From the moment I saw the title, Goddess Lost: How the Downfall of Female Deities Degraded Women’s Status in World Cultures, by Rachel S. McCoppin, I knew I would have to read it. When it arrived in my mailbox and I saw the cover, I was imbued with inspiration. Then I read two sentences in the Preface, which articulate what for me, and for many, is one of the most vital, powerful, and, as yet, under-addressed, facts.