Thousands of years ago, before the commencement of the patriarchy when society had a more matriarchal view, communities revered women and prayed to the Goddess. Women, and especially priestesses were working with the Goddess in all aspects of female life including celebrating and heralding the most important rites of passage in a woman’s life; menstruation, conception, pregnancy and birth, menopause and death.
This was a time when female and feminine energy was really celebrated. The things that women are highly criticised for today were seen at this time as the fabric to a successful society, for example, community, long conversations in sisterhood, slowing down for blood times, supporting a woman through her crone transition (menopause), birth was a communal affair, as was child rearing. Women did all this in community, via shared stories and sisterhood.
In fact, never before in history has the burden and responsibility of rearing of children been placed on one or even two people. 5,000 years ago, this was a time when community was valued, there was no head of the society such as a president or prime minister and it was far more egalitarian. In many ways, it is what communism or socialism wished it could be, and was without the infection of patriarchy and the pursuit of corrupt power.
At this time, power of the individual was unfavourable. The power of the collective and the collective community was valued and sought. In the absence of the toxic belief that only one or two women could have an opportunity, there was no corrosive belief system that fuelled competition and scarcity, and women knew that the power of many hands equalled lighter and easier work. And so this is how it was.
The female understood her power, her intuition, her feeling centre, her connection and her desire to create. She knew it came from the womb space because there was deep connection to it, and because it bore so much for her community. The womb was never questioned, it was never feared. So its power and the way that it enhanced the entire community was clear. Women knew that their spirituality and their pleasure was important.
In matriarchal cultures such as Ancient Greece, Mesopotamia, India, Egypt and Anatolia, people understood the difference between love and pleasure. They were taught the nuances of each and prioritised them in their lives. Women prayed to the Goddess of Love, the Goddess of Pleasure, the Goddess of Inspiration, Goddess of Muses and Goddess of Humour. Each of these Goddesses were highly valued and revered in these societies, and as a result, women’s pleasure, joy and love were unbridled and seen as a service to the Goddesses and society. A woman’s pleasure was important and valued, and it was seen as a necessary part of life, both at the individual level and at the societal one.
That concept could be read so quickly and completely missed in its deep meaning. At this time on Earth, women could not only identify, embody and value love, pleasure, humour and inspiration, they could distinguish the differences in such a subtle and clear way that they prayed to different Goddesses based on these deep understandings and strongly held cultural values. If you consider the average woman today, she understands these same subtle differences in such a clear way in her devotion to the Goddess of Busyness, Goddess of Overworked, the Goddess of Underpaid, Goddess of Under-appreciated and Goddess of Under-supported.
When we juxtapose where women 5-6,000 years ago to where our society has its focuses and values today, we can really start to feel the absolute difference in how the society is set up. Being a woman can be a disadvantage in ways we didn’t even understand 10 years ago, 2 years ago, 100 years ago. We keep learning and unlearning about the privileges we are denied as we grow in our collective power and start to challenge and change more and more of this society. Sometimes, understanding inequality is similar to how a fish doesn’t understand it is in water. The water has always been there - the patriarchy has seemingly always been there, so it is hard to question it or understand life without it. Except that it hasn’t always been there, and there is a life without it.
Millennia ago, Goddesses and Priestesses worked together in prayer, ceremony and ritual. Priestesses then engaged women in these practices and taught them. Priestesses knew exactly how to conceive a child and how not to, and therefore were free to practice their own sexual and sensual expression in great reverence as a highly spiritual practice and ultimate declaration of Love of the Goddess. Sexuality was free and it was a form of expression and devotion to the Goddess. To have your sexuality open and flowing had no notions of sex, disgrace or any of the notions women have placed on them today. Sexuality was akin to godliness.
High Priestesses in many different temple sects around the world would bestow their sacred sensuality and sacred sexuality on high born and highly evolved beings so that they might commune with their Source and access the highest realms that was more naturally and easily accessible for the female being. She would then be able to educate the males in the society about what it was like to have this communion with these higher powers of Gods.
Priestesses would take time to help any woman to connect to her innate wisdom, the knowledge that she held within her, it was seen as such a vital aspect of life, health and wellness that not living in that connected state was an unfathomed existence. It is also what we would label mental health issues in 2024. A connection to every other sister in the community, the priestesses and the Goddesses was a vital requirement for a healthy, communal life. Anyone going through a difficult time was supported by the community and the collective wisdom of the group. No one was left alone.
Compare that to today, where everyone is left alone and your issues and bodily functions and rites of passage are taboo and silenced. At this time nothing was taboo or silent, talking, sharing stories and singing songs was a frequent occurrence of community, and so feeling connected, understood and shepherded through life was normal. Questions were answered by those older and wiser. Mentorship, or sisterhood was a foundation for life.
This is a time when blood wisdom was followed, an ancient sense of wise knowing that flows through strongly during menstruation and at child birth. The feminine energy of the creative life force pulsing within her. The aim was to awaken the awareness to recognise and honour this living presence of the Goddess as an everyday reality.
This is all still possible today. Once this awareness of our herstory is awakened, and with continued practice, the shift in consciousness that is possible for all of us, can be so powerful that it can literally change one’s whole view and experience of life, and can certainly support a newly confident and assured capacity to value the voice of the inner teacher and blood wisdom within each of us.
You can be loved and honoured for who you are, you can be filled with joy and ecstasy. Your radiance is exactly the medicine that the world needs right now. There is no better feeling than learning to expand into the full being you were born to become.
Activating, invigorating and embodying your sensuality and sexuality is so key in being in flow with your desires in life, to holding and circulating your kundalini energy serpents and is critical in co-creation and manifestation. We are all powerful, radiant beings.
Sometimes we may give in and accept less than we’re worth. These are all symptoms of a society that doesn’t understand or value women, their wisdom or their inherent or inherited knowledge. In a world that only values knowledge from books or universities, much of our feminine wisdom is disregarded. But that knowledge is held within us all. In our womb, in our blood, in our XX chromosomes. That is our power. That is our birthright. There lies our freedom.
For too long, under this current paradigm we’ve accepted that another can be in control over all aspects of our lives, that we reinforce daily by complying with the conditions of our lives and the justifications regarding its necessity. We often don’t even stop to understand who is actually making decisions in our lives - us or someone else? How could we justify to ourselves that someone else is in the driving seat of our life? So painful is it to discover this, that we refuse to look. Refuse to question or enquire.
But, what is harder? Radically reclaiming your life, reinstating it as your own, reclaiming your radiance, joy, pleasure and freedom…. or going along with the status quo, continuing to feel exhausted, overlooked, under appreciated and taken for granted…?
It is always hard to break out of these dynamics. The alternative is staying where you are.
A reminder that there was a time where you were celebrated for your femininity, your glorious wisdom, your womb and your ovaries, and the way you are - exactly as you are hopefully helps you to embrace that for yourself.
Own it and be it.