[Editor’s Note: This essay was included in She Rises: Why Goddess Feminism, Activism, and Spirituality? Volume 1.]
Our world is built on ratios; balance between opposing forces. Ratios can be seen in minerals, flower petals, night to day – and in the solstice sun and the waxing and waning moon. The great classic musical masterpieces were created on ratios in the notes and chords. Ratios are present in the Fibonacci Code and in Harmonics Theories. Ratios, rhythm and harmonics are the dance of the universe.
Many moons ago, women were the keepers of the dance – they understood the natural cycle of ratios – of night to day, new to full to waning moon; menstruation to ovulation and to menstruation again. Antler bones have been found and archived from 250,000 BCE with etchings on the waxing and the waning moon.
Rosalind Miles, author of The Women’s History of the World eloquently states:
For woman, with her inexplicable moon rhythms and power creating new life was the sacred mystery of the tribe. So miraculous, so powerful, she had to be more than man – more than human. As primitive man began to think symbolically, there was only one explanation. Woman was the primary symbol, the greatest entity of all – a goddess, no less (Miles, 17).
The triphasic aspect of womanhood became the symbol of the Goddess. Every month women shifted hormonally, physically and mentally/emotionally as the moon passed through the three phases of the lunar cycle.
The sacred triphasic aspect of what has come to be known as the ‘Holy Trinity’ – father, son and Holy Ghost – was originally based on the Goddess aspect of ‘Maiden, Mother and Wise Woman.’ And all menopausal women know that the wise woman phase of our lives is much more powerful than some holy ghost! It is the intuitive, psychic, deeply spiritual aspect of our lives that brings us into touch with the essence of Goddess feminism, which turns into activism and deep connection/spirituality.
Triphasic symbols are present everywhere – especially in ancient and contemporary architecture. But the symbolism is far greater – for everything has a beginning a peak and an end. Think of the waves that come to shore – they build, curl into themselves, and roll to shore with a crescendo – only to retreat and be pulled back out into the great body of the mother ocean again and again. Think of the menstrual/endocrine cycle . . . with its rising hormones, peaking with ovulation and yes, rolling into the shore of the Divine Feminine during the paramenstrum.
I have come to call sacred dance “Female Mystique: The Three Phases of Eve” and write about this powerful feminist goddess cycle in my book, Understanding Your Mind, Mood, and Hormone Cycle.
This sacred aspect of women has been suppressed for millennia and needs to be resurrected, so that women can truly embrace themselves and their lives. The men and children need this rhythm in their lives as well. I see women as the nucleus of the atom; men and children the electrons and protons that cycle around the nucleus – when it is intact. Without understanding cycles, the nucleus becomes chaotic – rippling disruptive waves throughout the energy field . . . ultimately affecting the health and vitality of the atom and ultimately the universe.
I would like to share a dedication in my book and that I adapt and use as many places as possible to help women remember the source of their being: Goddess Feminism is dedicated to all women who have ever experienced a hormone fluctuation; from menarche to menopause. To the generations of women who have died because we have forgotten the source of our being and to our daughters who will survive – because they will have finally remembered.
See Meet Mago Contributor Leslie Carol Botha.
Reference:
R. Miles. The Women’s History of the World. Topsfield. MA: Salem House Publishers, 1988.