6 - Goddesses came
before Gods
The Feminists are right in saying that it has been and still is to an extent a Man's World. This is quickly changing here in the West at any rate, but looking at things over the last 2,000 years and forgetting the last 100 years or so the
overwhelming dominance of the male gender in things especially in Christianity, Islam and
Judaism.
Around 10,000 years ago mankind started the beginning stages of agricultural food production. Before this mankind were hunter/gatherers. There was a
fundamental shift in the relationship with Nature. As hunter/gatherers you would work in partnership with Nature very carefully and sensitively. You would have to hunt in such a manner that you did not deplete the wild stock or gather in a such a manner that Nature could replenish, or else you would starve next year. It meant developing an extra ordinary level of sensitivity and your success would depend on how well you would be able to read all the subtle signs and feel as to whether it would be right to pick or leave alone. There would be no question of control of things, you were at the whim of the elements and Nature. Nature provided and your role was to develop the skills to make best use of what was out there and what was not there, you could not control it. This period started around 30,000 years ago and is called Paleolithic Period.
The starting of agriculture and animal husbandry started around 20,000 years later, that is to say 10,000 years ago and carries on to this day. This is the Neolithic period. Now the shift in the relationship with Nature is that there began this notion that you can control things. So instead of being at the whim of Nature for your food, you could go ahead and plant it yourself and by inference have greater control over how you got your food.
In the Paleolithic Period it has been discovered that every continent, almost every nation, in earliest times, had had a primary female Creator figure. In Ur, she was the Great Mother, the Creatress. In Sumer, she was called Nidaba. In Babylon, she was called Istar and Goddess of the Universe. In Egypt, the goddess was called "She Who Makes The Universe Spin". In Greece, the Great Mother was also called The Prophetess, and enclaves of her priestesses were found everywhere. Originally, the majority of oracles in Greece and ancient Macedon were dedicated to the Goddess and only later became dedicated to male deities. In Polynesia, the goddess was seen as both creator and destroyer and in South America was hailed as "the Oneness that Contains All Dualities". In North America, she was Thought Woman, Mother Ragno, Keeper of the Blessingway, and Earth Woman. Though one being, she had a thousand names, which echo throughout our myths even now: Apsu, Ennoia, Turquoise Woman, Aruru, Inanna, Ament, Lilith, Amaterasu, Skadi, Artemis, Nemesis, Nzambi and more.
Today, the "Mother Earth", Gaia itself, carries the remnants of names of the goddess. Continents such as Europe, Asia, and Africa bear her name, as do the lands of Libya, Lydia, Anatolia, Scotland, Scandinavia, Ireland and others. These were the names of goddesses long before they were the names of nations. From the Judeo-Christian Hohkma to the Japanese Amaterasu, from Greece's Great Mother to the Caribbean Yemaya, every nation, every people, every culture has had a mythology that included the primary female deity.
Exactly why this is maybe to do with the fact that it is the females that bring new life into the world and it would be they that would would do the primary nurturing. After all talk to any gardener, and the commonest phrase they will come up with is Mother Nature, not Father Nature. Thus the notion of new life, creating new life upon which everything depended on whether it is a seedling that needs nurturing so that it can bear fruit or a young infant, the focus would be on the Female.
As the Neolithic period started the Gods became more and more male orientated and the the 3 male dominated religions, Christianity, Judaism and Islam really took hold from around 2,000 years ago.
Taking the entire 30,000 year period something important happened so far as sex was concerned. Some sort of battle between Instinct and Reason I suspect. A
polarization of the sexes with the males polarizing towards Reason and the females towards Instinct and all the associated more emotional qualities. All this culminating in the "Age of Reason" with
Galileo and the progressive and gradual relegation of the more emotional and instinctive aspects of human nature culminating in the norms of the Victorian Age which I shall talk about. The witch hunts were all part of the attempt to eradicate the powerful and emotive aspects of what was seen as irrational thought and
behavior. Sex was regarded as a dangerous force to be curbed, as it was thought to run counter to cerebral thought and reason. All this culminated as sex that is in some way shameful and sinful and in an innocent way the "Carry On" films played on these beliefs.
Therefore anything at all to do with sex in ancient times in terms of writings and art work would have had the severest 2,000 years of cencorship to get through, and given the extremes of thinking in this area it is completely unconceivable how any writings at all would even get written, let alone pass along intact for that length of time.
So it is left purely for us to guess as to what really happened and in the absence of anything the imagination
certainly can get going!
Mass sexual orgies and multiple mass orgasms being part of maybe large celebrations - maybe these things happened or maybe not at all. All we can say is that sex is a strong instinct in everyone and the ability for
everyone to have an orgasm is there. So no one can say that these 2 things were somehow never used or never present in people in ancient times. But in what form these things manifest themselves in ancient times, well we shall never know. It also seems reasonable to speculate that belly dance must have figured in there somehow but again how we shall never know.
The fact that we don't know for certain has set off too many imaginations that have clouded and
haven't really helped our case. All we can say for certain is that over the last 2,000 years sex has been regarded as sinful in any other setting other than in marriage but that is changing. So now is the time for plenty of debating as we are about to throw off an old norm but not yet clear what the new norm if any there may be or should be a norm?
I personally have a deep reverence of the Natural World and in fact I feel that my dancing emulates Natural Form. This
reverence for natural things I am noticing more and more everywhere. From the fashions of the clothes to the type of artifacts they have in modern
buildings and to the type of way they are now decorating anything from airport lounges to hairdressing salons, you can't but help notice that Nature is used more and more. Maybe the Goddesses from Ancient times are speaking and we are beginning to start listening just a bit - hope its not too late.