Read my essay on the Feminism and Religion blog: https://feminismandreligion.com/2024/03/01/mothering-society-and-the-goddess-by-jennifer-eva-pillau/
Who Are You?
“Lady of all the essences, full of light, good woman clothed in radiance whom heaven and earth love… You are a flood descending from a mountain, O primary one, moon goddess Inanna of heaven and earth!” — Poem by the Priestess Enheduanna, C. 2300 BCE. Excerpted from The Heart of the Goddess: Art, Myth and Meditations of the World’s Sacred Feminine. All images on www.heartgoddess.net
Imagine traveling to a hauntingly dark and mysterious place, alone. Forced to surrender everything you know along the way - everything you think you are – you arrive at your destination sans armor, comforts, or totems of identity, cold and naked. Truly alone. Who are you?
Inanna is the ancient Sumerian Goddess – the Queen of Heaven – whose story of descent and return from the underworld can inspire us to surrender the stories of who we think we are; the masks we’ve adorned ourselves with to construct our identity, conform to expectations, and “earn” prestige or status. What does it mean to strip ourselves bare and meet the world with our truest essence? What does it mean for us? How does it transform the world?
Join us as we re-tell the story of Inanna’s journey and imagine the opportunity for our own shedding – programming, defenses, stories, woundedness – to find ourselves anew; transformed, and more truthful, awake, and fierce than we imagined we could be.
Join us in the Red Tent this Friday for meditation and sharing. Bring your journal.
Logistics:
Date: Friday, July 9, 2021
Time: 7-10 p.m., CET
Location: Eindhoven City Center
Cost: Free/donations accepted
RSVP/Register: Email Jennifer
What to Bring: A journal and writing instrument
Wild Roots Herbal Gathering
I'll be presenting a dance session at the Wild Roots Herbal Gathering in a few weeks. I'd love to see you there!
The second annual Wild Roots Herbal Gathering ~ July 2 - 4 ~ Produced for women, by women. A retreat weekend with outdoor classes about herbal plant medicines and their practical applications, the wisdom of plants, healing our bodies with natural remedies, and reconnecting with the earth in sustainable ways. Held at de Uelenspieghel in Uffelte. Workshops will be offered in English and Dutch. All levels of plant lovers are welcome. More information about registration, weekend schedule, teachers and details on the event page. Link to the event page:
Goddess Archetypes and a Woman's Soul Journey
“Lilith is particularly important because her story tells us of the essential role that the suppression of female sexuality plays in the transition between egalitarian and hierarchical culture. She cannot remain in the patriarchal order if she is to maintain her sexual freedom and equality, and the patriarchy must demonize her for her assertiveness. In spite of adversity and exile, Lilith remains independent and wild.” - Hallie Iglehart Austen in her book The Heart of the Goddess: Art, Myth and Meditations of the World’s Sacred Feminine. All images on www.heartgoddess.net
How might our lives and our sense of purpose in this realm be different if every day we passed through a doorway that was carved in the shape of a Yoni? If we were visually reminded, as part of our daily routine, of where we came from, how we arrived here, and that the preciousness of the source of life is embodied within us? Imagine engaging in community rituals in which dance, story and adornment were regular reminders of the sacredness of relationship, self-love, and earned wisdom; or what it would be like to give birth on a lion throne, on a platform over the place where your ancestors were buried.
Thousands of years ago Goddess-revering civilizations flourished all over our beautiful planet. This fact has been well-documented, studied and written about by historians, archeologists, and authors. Goddess images, principles and values have been and continue to be celebrated in art, ceremony, and women’s gatherings around the world. Why, however, do images and stories of ancient Goddesses seem to exist so far outside of modern-day mainstream consciousness? Is it possible that this exclusion is a root cause of ever-increasing global destruction, turmoil, dis-ease, and crisis?
According to archeological data, Goddesses and Priestesses were held in high esteem in ancient cultures whose ruins turned up little-to-no evidence of weaponry and war culture, but instead revealed evidence of reverence for nature, beautiful and sophisticated art, refined architectural design, and egalitarian social structures. Goddesses are associated with values that hold the source of life as sacred, and that honor Nature as the ultimate Mother. Revering the story of a Goddess was (and is) practiced in order to encourage life-giving human behaviors such as creativity, nurturance, sensuality, growth and transformation, healing, courage, earth stewardship, access to higher states of consciousness, and the earning of wisdom through experience. Some Goddesses symbolized and celebrated the natural cycles of life, while others powerfully invoked the act of birthing and the mystery and wonderment of the creative force.
Is it possible that a return to these stories and values could be the balm and guidance that we need to not only nurture and inform our own lives, but to restore a sense of priority and integrity in our decisions around business, commerce, politics, ecology, health care, and relationships?
A relationship with the Goddess is a practice of remembering and embodying our lineage, the source of life, the sacredness of all beings, and our innate capability and responsibility to nurture, protect, and engage in life with well-informed courage and conviction.
Join us in the Red Tent this month as we explore how invoking the stories and lessons of ancient Goddesses and their civilizations can fortify us to take action in alignment with principles of ecology, diversity, and shared lineage. Inspired by the wisdom of our ancestors, we will create a more vibrant and harmonious world with confidence and conviction.
References:
The Heart of the Goddess: Art, Myth and Meditations of the World’s Sacred Feminine, by Hallie Iglehart Austen. All images on www.heartgoddess.net
The Chalice and The Blade; Our History, Our future, by Riane Eisler
Uncoiling the Snake; Ancient Patterns in Contemporary Women’s Lives, edited by Vicki Noble
As a primer for our conversation in the Red Tent, you may enjoy viewing this interview with author Hallie Iglehart Austen regarding her book The Heart of the Goddess on Starr Goode’s series The Goddess in Art, a cable series that originally aired in the 1980’s: https://youtu.be/kpU3obqUrhw
Logistics:
Date: Friday, June 11, 2021
Time: 7-10 p.m., CET
Location: Eindhoven City Center
Cost: Free/donations accepted
RSVP/Register: Email Jennifer
What to Bring: A photo, special piece of jewelry, poem, or figurine that represents your relationship to the Goddess
Update, and another opportunity:
Our in-person gathering Friday evening was divine! As our extended community has grown significantly over the past year, and as this topic was an incredibly deep, divine, and potent one - I am offering a second gathering this week via zoom to accommodate our friends from afar, as well as anyone in the local community that wasn't able to join us on Friday.
Date: Thursday, June 17, 2021
Time: 7-9:30 p.m., CET
Location: Eindhoven City Center
Cost: Free/donations accepted
RSVP/Register: Email Jennifer
What to Bring: A photo, special piece of jewelry, poem, or figurine that represents your relationship to the Goddess
I look forward to gathering with you under the New Moon this week,
Jennifer
Birth is a Portal
Birth is a portal with profound individual, collective, and anthropological significance.
"Woman is like God, because she gives birth to the people."
- African Proverb
Please join us for a heartfelt circle of sisterhood and sharing. This week we offer this sacred space for honoring the divine spark within each of us that is the Source of Life. We welcome sharing, and request deep listening; as well as curiosity and dreaming.
Images, historical accounts, and evidence from ancient and indigenous cultures that revered the source of life as sacred will be shared in the spirit of invoking a relationship of reverence with our bodies and our birth stories. Together we will dream into a vision of a social fabric that nurtures life, encourages creative adventure, and allocates energy and resources toward life-affirming activities.
Read more here
LOGISTICS:
Date: Tuesday, May 11, 2021
Time: 7-10 p.m., CET
Location: Zoom/TBA
Cost: Free/donations only
RSVP/Register: Email Jennifer
What to Bring: A photo, trinket, poem, or other small item that represents the portal of birth for you
Hope to see you under the New Moon this week,
Jennifer
Birth Stories
This month of Mother’s Day, we will have a conversation in the Red Tent about our Birth Stories. Each of us has traveled this portal to arrive here. Many of us have birthed offspring; some of us have yet to; and we all experience the exhilaration and angst of birthing through our innate well of creative resource in myriad ways throughout our lifetime. We each possess within us the divine instinct and impetus to conceive and cultivate, tend, nest, nourish and nurture. Our experience of this process is wrought with great hope and joy, and often equal amounts pain and loss; even devastation.
There are stories, lore, artifact and extensive bodies of work that have explored the history and anthropology of women’s roles in modern and ancient societies. Many apparently quite sophisticated ancient civilizations crafted images and statues of women and goddesses giving birth, nurturing children, and shamelessly and sensuously displaying scenes of pleasure, confidence, and love. Many academics and historians have suggested that this is evidence that women in ancient civilizations held high status, and were honored and revered as the embodiment and source of life for the community. Women, Priestesses, and Goddesses were also depicted in ancient art as protectors, and the embodiment of Mother Nature, an association that suggests profound respect, relationship with, and care for the source of all of life.
Birthing and all that goes with it is not a small or cavalier topic that we can “cover” in a few hours together. We would need many months to fully and properly appreciate and honor each woman’s experience of birthing, and perhaps many years and deep anthropological, sociological and psychological inquiry to begin to understand how and why culture and practices around birthing have changed so dramatically.
It is possible and in fact likely that some of us have suffered traumas in our birthing experiences. In the modern age of hospitals, social and economic inequities, clinical procedures, pharmaceuticals, and technological oversight of the birthing process, women look to doctors and other professionals to guide them through the process. A compelling question that lingers for me is how birthing and all that goes with it was transferred from the realm and authority of midwives and wise women, to the auspices of clinicians and, for a long time, male-dominated, professions of science and medicine.
In the spirit of inquiry, great care, and reverence for women’s holistic experiences, past and present, we will bring attention to our felt experiences, as well as our dreams, challenges, unspeakable joys, and even regrets. The significance and breadth of the birthing experience for women, children, families and societies cannot be underestimated. In this most tender, vulnerable and potently transformative – universal - portal for women and children, we will begin to investigate together how the process of giving birth imprints our psyches, our physiology and neurology, and our social and societal fabric.
We will hold each woman with tenderness and care, offer space and sincere attention to hear what wants to be shared and acknowledged, and share opportunities for healing where that may be necessary or desired.
Wherever you are in your journey as a woman, please join us for this most essential inquiry.
Logistics:
Date: Tuesday, May 11, 2021
Time: 7 - 10 p.m. CET
Location: Zoom/TBA
Cost: Free/donations only
RSVP/Register: Email Jennifer
What to Bring: A photo, trinket, poem, or other small item that represents the portal of birth for you
References and further reading:
The Heart of the Goddess; Art, Myth and Meditations of the World’s Sacred Feminine, By Hallie Iglehart Austen
The Chalice and the Blade; Our History, Our Future, By Riane Eisler
The Business of Being Born Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DgLf8hHMgo
The Goddess in Art TV series: The Triple Goddess: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqy4H8ABFiE
Birth and Death; Creation and Destruction: Emerging Renewed
Once again we meet the pivot of the dark moon. What in you, in your life, is dying? What is emerging new? What in the world as we know it is dying? What is emerging renewed? What is scaring you? What is inspiring you? What is naturally being shed like an old skin, and what is spiraling in you that will animate this next phase in your mission as a human?
Paying attention to cycles and seasons can anchor us into the reliability and inevitability of birth and death, creation and destruction. One cannot exist without the other. In a way, being part of this wildly alive and oscillating matrix of living and dying can be reassuring, even exciting; on the other hand, it can be – and often is – terrifying. And painful. Being alive inherently implores a ritual process of letting go, as in the bleeding phase of the menstrual cycle, a snake shedding its skin, a tree releasing its leaves to ground-covering compost in the fall, or the death of a beloved elder. Coming to terms with the impermanence of everything and everyone around us can be painful; coming to terms with the impermanence of who we are (or, perhaps more accurately, who we think we are) can also be disorienting. Yet such transitions are inevitable.
Thus, the reassuring cliché “this too shall pass.”
While dark moons offer us a cyclical encounter with the process of death, new moons and the springtime usher in divinely inspired opportunities for re-birth and growth. Yes, divinely inspired.
When spring is in the air, the forces of nature are more easily harnessed and available for our growing momentum; for the growth of our gardens, our psyches, our life’s work – our healing. For our part, the wisdom and discipline is to notice, to drop in; to be keen listeners and observers, to feel it and to go for it – whatever “it” means for you. Each of us a tiny cell in the intricate web of everything, there are gazillions of other cells counting on us to do our unique and creative thing – to keep our shine on and to connect with the shine in all the other little cells; to do our part, keep our temple clean and healthy, and hold hands with the others in solidarity.
This body that we inhabit, this vessel – this temple - is ours to steward, heal, and experience life – and death – with and through. This body, sovereign and whole in its own right, infused with the mystery as well as the capacity for logic and free will, is beckoning for our love and attention on this day of the dark moon.
Dark moons are for letting go – even if for just an hour – into quietude and deep listening. Springtime is an invitation to embody the creatrix – with our imaginations, our hands, our inner knowing.
Kali, Hindu Goddess of Destruction and Rebirth
By you this universe is born, by you this world is created.
By you it is protected, O Devi. By you it is consumed at the end.
You who are eternally the form of the whole world,
at the time of creation you are the form of the creative force,
at the time of preservation you are the form of the protective power,
and at the time of dissolution of the world you are the form of the destructive power.
-Devi-Mahatmaya
What in you is dying? Is there something in you, in your life, that needs to be destroyed, or cast out?
Relieved now of decaying tissue, the weight of past experiences and thought patterns, what in you is shining forth, renewed and refortified?
Embody courage. The world is ready.
References:
The Heart of the Goddess; Art, Myth and Meditations of the World’s Sacred Feminine, by Hallie Iglehart Austen
Kali Rising; Foundational Principles of Tantra for a Transforming Planet, by Rudolph Ballentine
The Minoan Snake Goddess
I loved our gathering last night. Menstruation and all of the tenderness, vulnerability and watery emotion of womanhood is so fascinating to me - most essentially I think, for its value as our infinite source of holistic, benevolent, healing power.
I've been studying a bit about ancient Minoan culture and it's deity, who graced our altar last night; The Minoan Snake Goddess. Minoan culture (the ruins of which are still present on the Greek Island of Crete) is known for being an ancient society of true partnership with nature and among men and women. In Rhian Eisler's book, The Chalice and The Blade, Minoan Crete is identified as a civilization characterized by robust health and vitality, sophisticated art and social life, and overall conditions of peacefulness and ease for all of its citizens - which, from the archeological evidence, seems not to have had a hierarchical ruler or ruling class, or weapons of war. I find it profoundly interesting that such a culture would be represented with an image of a bare-breasted Goddess and snakes (belly to the earth!). Soft belly to the earth.....
Gratitude and appreciation to all who attended and shared!
Women's Day and Ecofeminism
“You’ve got to be small and different.”
— Dr. Vandana Shiva
In honor of Women’s Day, I signed up for a three-day advocacy course with Dr. Vandana Shiva on Ecofeminism, through her organization, Navdanya. Women from around the world dialed in to hear about Dr. Shiva’s most recent work, and to be encouraged and inspired to be confident protectors of land, soil, seeds, food, and human rights.
Read more about Navdanya here https://www.navdanya.org/site/ and here https://navdanyainternational.org/.
I have followed and admired Dr. Shiva’s work for decades. Her voice is a persistent, lucid, and fierce international presence in the realms of organic farming, world-wide agriculture policies and widespread corruption, colonization and technocratic interference with indigenous sovereignty and natural systems of resilience.
“The future will be what we seed.”
- Dr. Vandana Shiva
I am an inexhaustible activist by nature in the areas of women’s health, food as medicine, bodily sovereignty, medical freedom, and in my inconsolable desire to activate human potential. As an Ayurvedic and Chinese Medicine practitioner I have been trained to seek, understand and address root causes of imbalance and dysfunction. This leads me to be keenly interested in ecological disruptions, women’s health (and therefore human health and well-being), the up-rooting of humanity through mass displacement and perpetual crisis (trauma), food and housing insecurity, and thus, necessarily, political and economic corruption and grassroots activism. Currently I am delving into issues of soil health and seed security by aligning with gardening experts and activists around the world, and by getting my hands into the soil to tend and discern the lessons held at the roots of life on this planet. All of these issues, of course, are one and the same in their implications for human and planetary health and vitality.
In a conversation about how to be effective in methods of stewardship and activism in the face of massive, extractive and manipulative global powers, Dr. Shiva tells us that “You’ve got to be small and different.” Top-down mechanistic power structures seek to impose uniformity, conformity, and monocultures of the mind – in exactly the same way that mechanistic, market-driven agriculture debases the soil by planting low-nutrient, genetically modified single-species crops for volume and profit. Dr. Shiva guides us instead to cultivate relationships in our local communities and with our natural environment, and to learn and practice indigenous regenerative agriculture methods that favor crop diversity, rich nutrition, and a reciprocal relationship between the land and all who inhabit it.
Through patents and intellectual property rights that now aggressively claim ownership of seeds – laying claim to life itself – corporate agribusinesses are increasingly seeking to bully, conquer, manipulate and master land, food, and the right to farm the land in India and around the world. Dr. Shiva teaches, writes and implores individuals - especially women - to disrupt this pattern by taking responsibility to study and engage directly with the living systems in our local environments in order to create ecosystems and communities based on co-evolution, partnership and relationship; driven by what women bring naturally – an appreciation and deep connection with the aliveness and vulnerability of our world, nurturing care, sensitivity, awareness, compassion and love.
How do we come together to effectively dismantle/disempower power structures that extract, manipulate, and seek to colonize and capitalize on every aspect of Nature’s bounty – seed to harvest, birth to death, from cellular structure to spirit and soul? After years of advocacy on various issues myself, I suspect the way to do this will have to do less with opposing or fighting anything or anyone, as this is exhausting and leads to more and more physical, emotional and psychic violence. I imagine that getting in the trenches; hands in dirt – heart-to-heart and shoulder-to-shoulder with our neighbors – will be the way to steward the Earth in a way that will make our ancestors smile and ensure abundant landscapes for our grandchildren and great-grandchildren to inherit.
In conversation about the lessons she’s learned as an activist and food and soil protector, Dr. Shiva had this advice for us: (some comments are paraphrased)
· “Hold your ground.”
· “(Cultivate) resilience.”
· “Keep doing the right thing.”
· Don’t wait for external funding to start or motivate your actions. External funding means that you will be indebted to the wishes of those who financed your projects.
· Take action with commitment, conscience and courage.
· Walk lightly; be extremely sensitive. Let the universe take care of you. Give your bit; do your best, but do not expect an outcome.
· Life does not thrive with the imposition of top-down orders. Mechanical systems dissipate energy. Life thrives when it is tended with the love, compassion and nurturance of women.
Read Dr. Shiva’s book Oneness Versus The One Percent.
Watch the trailer for the soon-to-be-released documentary about her life, Seeds of Vandana Shiva:
“Monsanto’s worst nightmare...”
Read about the farmer’s protest happening in India now, and the history of agricultural policies and corporate take-overs that have harmed India’s small farmers for decades.
https://navdanyainternational.org/30-40-years-indian-farmers-protest/
Read recent reports published by Navdanya:
http://navdanya.org/site/eco-feminism/women-feed-the-world
https://www.navdanya.org/site/eco-feminism/the-earth-rising,-women-rising
Open Invitation to a Conversation About Beauty
What if Beauty were not about a woman’s body shape, skin-tautness, or camera-ready display of pseudo-confidence, but a portal?
What if the mundane – chores, random interactions, daily routines of “doing stuff” – were each a unique opportunity to activate a heightened state of awareness; wild aliveness; vivid, awe-inspiring Beauty.
What could shift if, instead of expending our precious energy in perpetual busy-ness and a constant stream of “stuff to do,” we instead pro-actively cultivated Beauty in each seemingly bland opportunity to engage with the world; with the wholeness of our bodies, with other beings, and with the aliveness that inhabits literally everything in our surroundings.
What if a true sense of Beauty is in our ability to see, hear, smell, touch, taste, and sense with profound sensitivity and clarity?
During this free community conversation, we will explore where our perceptions and pursuits of beauty in modern times have been misguided and led us astray. We are inviting you to embark on a journey to reclaim Beauty as our inherent, glorious nature – that which is born of, shared, and infinitely regenerative, as a function of our relationship with Mother Nature Herself.
This free-of-charge gathering will be an introduction to our 8-session series that will train us to invoke the divine in every aspect of our lives. On this extended journey, you can expect to get to know yourself more intimately through Ayurvedic assessment of your constitutional nature, guidance on gentle, personalized seasonal detoxing, holistic nourishment, and potent and luxurious self-care practices.
Regardless of whether you decide to join us for the full 8-session experience of Beauty Rituals – you will not want to miss this eye-opening, celebratory invocation of infinite Beauty as our guiding principle for high-level wellness and deeply satisfying engagement with all that this human experience has to offer...
Please contact Jennifer or Jasmijn to register.
Date: Sunday, March 21, 2021.
Time: 5 p.m. - 6:30 p.m. CET / 11 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. EST / 8 a.m. - 9:30 a.m. PST
Place: Zoom
Cost: Free