Week 31--in which we ask how our ancestors lived in peace... what did they know that we've forgotten

Beautiful Ones,

I’ve spent the last several months immersed in books by historians, classicists, mythologists, anthropologists, and historians who studied how our ancestors lived in peace for thousands of years before patriarchy.

All in preparation for our 6th ART intensive on Reverence and Devotion which opens today, Sunday, August 3.

Note: You can still register. If I see your registration before 1p eastern, I’ll send the Zoom for our Opening Celebration today 2:00 – 4:00pm eastern. If you register after 1, get the active link on your receipt which will direct you to the zoom. Everything is recorded. You are welcome to register anytime this week. I will close registration next Sunday.

Ever since witch arrived in 2020—and completely rearranged my life—I’ve sought to understand how tens of thousands of years of living in peace devolved so quickly into a world dominated by war, greed, hate, suffering, and total obsession with controlling and abusing women.

A world whose horrors are not relegated to history. Oh no, that world is now on full display on our screens.

How did we get here?

The anthropological record is fairly easy to read once you know what you’re looking for.

Although it took longer to see than it should have. Because all the “properly credentialed” anthropologists and historians were male, and couldn’t see what was right in front of them.

That’s how God with a capital G got to be identified with “real” religions, while Goddess is invariably written in lower case and Her religions are referred to as “fertility cults.”

Once women such as Marija Gimbutas, Max Dashu, Merlin Stone, Barbara Mor, Monica Sjoo, Anne Barring, and Daisy Dunn began to examine the record, the story began to change. And it’s that story—the story etched in our hearts and bones—that we long to remember.

And remember, we will.

Remembering what we never really forgot is the entire point of all seven intensives in The Witch Sequence.

The demarcation line, the before and after so to speak, is stark. For millennia, we lived, as the title of ART 6 says, in Reverence and Devotion:

• We had reverence for the Earth and her abundant gifts of food, shelter, warmth, and water.
• We were devoted to the Goddess and Her countless names and faces as the source of all those gifts.
• We honored the mysteries of life and life’s partner death, recognizing both as sacred and spiral.
• We lived in matrilineal communities that revered women as the living expression of the Goddess.
• Women were so sacred, so important, that they chose who they wanted to be with, and if chosen, a man left his home and family and moved into the woman’s compound for as long as she wanted him there.

What happened?

The sky gods arrived spewing laws, and punishments for breaking those laws. Following up their threats with violence. Their gods no longer lived in and as the Earth, leaving Mother Earth as a commodity to be bought and sold. And, to maintain total dominance, they dictated that all Goddesses, their names, symbols, sacred lands, and worshippers be silenced or destroyed.

Suddenly women had to live under male control. They lost title to their names and their children. They had to obey their fathers, husbands, even their sons. Daughters could no longer inherit. Women went from being revered to being seen as the source of sin and evil.

The result: genocide, slavery, trafficking, starvation, war…. In other words, the world we live in.

The word we use for that in The Witch Sequence is wasteland. We are living in the wasteland.

So in preparation for ART 6 on Reverence and Devotion, I’ve been reading and rereading my personal library. And, because Cathy Stevens Pratt and I want members of ART 6 to see and feel and smell the pre-patriarchal world, we’ve spent countless hours tracking down ancient artifacts, unearthed statues, deserted ruins, beehive tombs, ancient poetry, original stories, maps—real evidence of how we once lived.

Not to replicate it, but to give us the guidance and encouragement to carefully and wisely sift through it all to find what feels relevant and possible in this moment.

I have compiled pages upon pages of great quotes from magnificent women researchers.

It was hard to find just one for you.

But I think this elegant synopsis from Marija Gimbutas in The Language of the Goddess captures this big magnificent story in a few sentences.

“The Goddess in all her manifestations was the symbol of the unity of all life in Nature. Her power was in water and stone, in tomb and cave, in animals and birds, snakes, and fish, hills, tress, and flowers. Hence the holistic and mythopoeic perception of the sacredness and mystery of all there is on Earth.  

This culture took keen delight in the natural wonders of this world. Its people did not produce lethal weapons or build forts in inaccessible places, as their successors did, even when thy were acquainted with metallurgy.

Instead, they built magnificent tomb-shrines and temples, comfortable houses in moderately-sized villages, and created superb pottery and sculptures.

This was a long-lasting period of remarkable creativity and stability, an age free of strife. Their culture was a culture of art.”

There are two lines in this that jump out at me.

1. First, Marija capitalizes Nature.

   I noticed because in our gatherings, we will be reciting an ancient document in which Isis describes herself as “mother of all Nature.” And Nature in this two thousand year old document is capitalized.

2. Second, Marija’s final line:
   Their culture was a culture of art.

   My research proves that magnificently. The art! The jewelry! The pottery! But I also hear "art" in the way we use it in The Witch Sequence. For us, A.R.T. means to Awaken, Remember, and Trust each of our seven birthright WitchArt gifts.

If you wish to awaken, remember, and trust your birthright legacy of Reverence and Devotion, follow this link for a full description of our intensive.

ART 6 
The Memory of Reverence ∞ Devotion

Life is Fragile. Handle with Reverence.

Janet
PS: if you were not in ART 5, you will need your Sigils from the four Libraries of the sacred elements in order to open the locked vaults in ART 6.

You can get them by purchasing ART 5 On Demand, it’s only $205. With that purchase, you are entitled to a discount for ART 6, bringing the final cost of ART 5 to just $124. Quite the bargain.

When you order ART 5, I'll send an email on how to begin to gather your elemental sigils so you're ready for the deep adventures in ART 6.

ART 5 Divination

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