Ancient Dreaming

Dreamer of Malta, 3000 BCE

“Excavators uncovered one of Malta’s most famous Neolithic sculptures, the “Sleeping Lady” of the Hypogeum, off the main hall. She reclines peacefully on her side, head in hand…This sculpture and another one shown lying on her stomach on a couch reminds us of initiation and healing rites known in later classical times. During these various classical ceremonies, the initiate spent a night in the temple (or cave or other remote place). The initiate experienced a night of visions and dreams, with spiritual or physical healing taking place…This rite probably derived from Neolithic practices that likened sleeping in a cave, temple, or underground chamber to slumbering in the goddess’ uterus before spiritual reawakening. For the living, such a ritual brought physical healing and spiritual rebirth. For the dead, burial within underground chambers, shaped and colored like the uterus, represented the possibility of regeneration through the goddess’ symbolic womb.

~Marijac Gimbutas,
The Living Goddesses

Shout It. Write It. Tell It.

“Tell your story.
Shout it. Write it.
Whisper it if you have to.
But tell it.
Some won’t understand it.
Some will outright reject it.
But many will
thank you for it.

And then the most
magical thing will happen.
One by one, voices will start
whispering, ‘Me, too.’
And your tribe will gather.
And you will never
feel alone again.”

~L.R. Knost

Wolf image artist unknown

More and More Ourselves

“We are not here to fit in, be well balanced, or provide exempla for others. We are here to be eccentric, different, perhaps strange, perhaps merely to add our small piece, our little clunky, chunky selves, to the great mosaic of being. As the gods intended, we are here to become more and more ourselves.”

~James Hollis

#authentic
#eccentric
#you

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Image: Alighting with Wings of Moth
by Lisbeth Cheever-Gessaman

The Coming of Spring

Brigid by Laura Tempest Zakroff

Goddess Brigid is honored and celebrated at Imbolc in early Frebriary.

Brigid was born at sunrise with a flame of light shooting from her flaming red hair. Her sacred fire represents divine inspiration, warmth, safety, and home.

Brigid is also known to be a great healer and protector of life. Ancient wells honoring her are still found in Ireland and Scotland. People have prayed and left offerings at her wells for thousands of years. Their waters hold healing powers.

Ancient Nature Goddess Brigid brings the light of spring. It is said that flowers bloom wherever she walks.

May Brigid bless the house wherein you dwell
Bless every fireside every wall and door
Bless every heart that beats beneath its roof
Bless every hand that toils to bring it joy
Bless every foot that walks its portals through
May Brigid bless the house that shelters you.

🔥

#brigid
#fire
#water
#goddess
#protectress
#sacredfeminine
#herstorymatters

Brigid’s Well, Kildare
Photo by NancyL

Holy Her

Goddess of Laussel, c. 22,000-18,000 BCE

“Before the shrinking of the Feminine was the Goddess—and all that is split in our own lives was in harmony in Hers. She was profoundly in Her body. Her body itself was sacred. In the Old Religion, body and spirit were one. She was seen as substantial, as essentially embodied. Her thighs, Her Belly, Her breasts were generous, Her physical strength apparent. We miss the beauty of such an image, we who have been taught to measure ourselves endlessly. Too fat, too thin, too flat, too wrinkled. Our bodies are never good, and in themselves. We must deny our naturalness to see beauty.

What we learn to reject was once holy. What we learn to hide behind closed doors was once celebrated in the open. Blood was sacred to the Goddess—menstrual blood. Some of Her images were painted red between the legs. What some of us and many of our mothers learned to see as ‘the curse’ was once seen as the Blessing, women’s particular creative magic. The blood that flows of itself and not from a wounding was thought to be the very source of life. One early creation tale stated than when the Mother created man and woman, She made them from a mixture of Her menstrual blood and clay. Moreover, every woman carried some of the Goddess’s sacred substance and participated in Her ability to create life.”


~Kathie Carlson,
In Her Image: The Unhealed
Daughter’s Search for Her Mother

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Fierce Feminine

“i found god in myself
and i loved her
i loved her fiercely” 
~Ntozake Shange

“The dakini is a messenger of emptiness and also appears in dreams to guide the meditator, and she might appear in real life as a woman with certain wisdom qualities. The dakini is a force of truth: wherever we cling, she cuts; whatever we think we can hide, she reveals.” ~Sapchu Rinpoche

“Another important aspect of the dakini’s feminine energy is how they cut through notions of pure and impure, clean and unclean, what you should do and shouldn’t do. They break open the shell of those conventional structures into an embrace of life in which all experience is seen as sacred.” ~Lama Tsultrim Allione

#wild
#wisdom
#sacredfeminine
#dakini

Art: Dancing Dakini, Nepal, 14th century; LACMA