Sovereign Unto Herself
Trista Hendren
“Deep in the psyche even of great women, there has not been a female metaphor for greatness, for strength, for the wisdom which they themselves embodied. The female Deities had been so slandered, so stripped of essential integrity… this is not myopia. The millennia of patriarchal narrative has left our minds locked up, unable to grasp the Female Metaphor… that she may stand sovereign, not as greater than, but in and of herself: so that, when a woman or a man desires to express greatness, nobility, strength they are able to easily reach for a female image.”
-Glenys Livingstone, PhD1
Imagine for a moment a picture of your greatest hero. Who is it? Why is this person your hero? How does her life relate to yours? How have they influenced you?
Our heroes are important: They guide us to where we can go (if we dare) and save us from our own limiting beliefs about ourselves. How do we guide our children to find role models who will empower them?
Every woman I know who took Women’s Studies in college talks about how their whole world sort of opened up with their first class. Why do we deprive our girls of this experience throughout most of their education? Is it possible more children would love going to school if it related back to them directly?
How can they have heroes that don’t reflect who they are?
The highlight of my son’s second grade school year was a “Hero Speech.” The kids researched various historical figures, picked the one that they identified with most strongly, continued to research that person more thoroughly, and finally wrote and presented a speech (in costume) to the entire second grade community, including parents and grandparents.
It was a wonderful project, and I was thrilled to see my son so engaged with his research on Benjamin Franklin. When he finally took the stage, he was Ben Franklin.
However, when I went into his classroom a few months before to celebrate his birthday, I was dismayed. I was only hearing about research on male heroes. The kids were allowed to ask anything of me about my son’s very early years. The questions they came up with were both creative and fun to answer. I decided to ask a few questions of my own.
I asked if the kids could name some female heroes.
No one could name even one.
The teacher explained that they were somewhat limited because the project required that they research books dedicated to heroes at their appropriate reading level. Apparently there just were not enough books written for second graders about women in history.2
The day of the speeches was a proud one. It was heartwarming to see all the kids dressed up in their costumes, filled with pride after months of mastering their presentations. As the children’s speeches were delivered, I couldn’t help notice the numbers of girls who were dressed as male heroes, giving brilliant speeches in men’s words.
There was not a single boy, of course, who dressed as his female hero or spoke in her words. My heart ached for all the second grade girls. In fact, I felt very sad for every woman in that room.
I couldn’t help but wonder why this is still happening.3
Fast-forward about a decade, and I don’t see a lot of change. While we now live in ‘progressive’ Norway, to-date, my daughter has had one day (ONE DAY!) where they focused on women’s history in school.
When she has brought up Goddesses in the schools of this secular country, she has been hushed. Even with a curriculum that teaches all the major world religions, Goddess is never mentioned.
Imagine a world where our daughters grew up knowing Her many names and rich history. Imagine a world where women did not spend their entire lives searching for their divinity.
As Simone de Beauvoir wrote 60 years ago, “Man enjoys the great advantage of having a god endorse the code he writes; and since man exercises a sovereign authority over women it is especially fortunate that this authority has been vested in him by the Supreme Being.”4 I believe the time of men’s authority is over. He has colonized the female sex long enough. As Monica Sjöö and Barbara Mor wrote: “…the female sex has functioned as a colony of organized patriarchal power for several thousand years now. Our brains have been emptied out of all memory of our own cultural history, and the colonizing power systematically denies such a history ever existed. The colonizing power mocks our attempts to rediscover and celebrate our ancient matriarchies as realities. In the past, women have had to accept this enforced female amnesia as “normal”; and many contemporary women continue to believe the female sex has existed always… as an auxiliary to the male-dominated world order. But we continue to dig in the ruins, seeking the energy of memory; believing that the reconstruction of women’s ancient history has a revolutionary potential equal to that of any political movement today.”5
Mainstreaming women’s ancient history is long-overdue. Gerda Lerner wrote, “Women’s history is the primary tool for women’s emancipation.”6 When women learn their rich HERstory, there is a significant shift that ripples through their entire way of be-ing.
This anthology is our attempt to bring back some of the ancient and suppressed wisdom—via the Goddess commonly known through much of the world as Isis.
Leslene della-Madre explained, “Philae in southern Egypt, home of the Temple of Isis, was, itself, a very popular pilgrimage site in the millennium preceding Jesus and continuing several centuries beyond his death. Isis was a female deity with origins in central Africa, or Nubia, and was known as a compassionate mother. In dark mother, Lucia [Chiavola Birnbaum, Ph.D.] cites the work of leading nubiologist and archeologist, William Y. Adams, who considers Isis worship to be ‘one of history’s most important ideological transformations.’ Adams further writes that Isis worship became ‘the first truly international and supra-national religion’ because pilgrims of all classes and nationalities, including Meriotes, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and desert nomads alike flocked to Her temple for healing and spiritual guidance. Isis veneration spread as far east as Afghanistan, to the Black Sea, as well as to what is now western Europe in Portugal and as far north as England. It is Her legacy that has been inherited by christianity as revealed in the icons of the Black Madonnas found all over Europe; Isis and Her son Horus suckling at Her breast are most likely the prototypes for Mary and Jesus.”7
Restoring this much earlier deity to memory begins the restoration of everything that patriarchy attempted to destroy.
Marianna Delray wrote, “The decline in Isiac iconography can be explained by intolerance of pagan cults and their imagery by the early Christian doctrine. However, it is worth noting that during the early stages of Christianity, when the cult of Isis was still widespread, its practices were witnessed by the pilgrims such as Paul during his missionary journeys through the cities of the Empire. For this reason, it is compulsory that the concepts reminiscent of the Isiac worship such as salvation, suffering, purification and resurrection, were later identified in the New Testament. By the fourth century, Christianity was officially embraced by Rome and the worshippers of Isis and other pagan gods were kept from power, while the cohesion of the old religion rapidly disintegrated. In fifth century Alexandria, the public burning of the cult objects seized from the Isis sanctuary at Menouthis, marked the beginning of the process of collection and open destruction of all pagan images. Consequently, the temple of Isis at Philae is often referred to as ‘one of the last bastions of pagan worship in Egypt.”8
Women have lost much of their divine heritage. It is important for each of us to see ourselves in the divine. We also must ensure that none of our sisters are left out in our individual attempts at empowerment. Patricia Monaghan explained, “There has never been only one religion of the goddess. Every continent, every culture, had its own vision of the way that divine feminine should be pictured. Each culture pictured her as one of their own. She was black in Africa, blonde in Scandinavia, round-faced in Japan, dark-eyed in India. For the goddess was the essence of woman’s strength and beauty to each one of her daughters, so she had to look like them. When ancient women looked at their goddess, they saw themselves.”9
One of my first introductions to the Divine Feminine was Patricia Lynn Reilly’s book, A God Who Looks Like Me—and, it shook me to my core. I have come to realize over the years that we have a long way to go in the Goddess community in terms of representing all ages, sizes and colors of Divine Women. Representation is important—particularly when the Goddess being depicted is, in fact, Black.
bell hooks wrote, “Women need to know that they can reject the powerful’s definition of their reality—that they can do so even if they are poor, exploited, or trapped in oppressive circumstances. They need to know that the exercise of this basic personal power is an act of resistance and strength. Many poor and exploited women, especially non-white women, would have been unable to develop positive self-concepts if they had not exercised their power to reject the powerful’s definition of their reality.”10 And that is a really important thing to remember. Because, as Marion Woodman said, “When you’re living your own reality, you become the sovereign of your own life.”11
Given the fact that most of us are not taught anything other than white male history in school, it is important that we take up the task of educating ourselves. And each of us have considerable work to do. While I have been studying alternative narratives since college, I still have some major blind spots.
Anthology contributor Tyreesha Garrett encouraged me to begin to dig deeper through the works of Anthony Browder. Recently Browder stated, “I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that when people of African ancestry are exposed to the truths that have been historically hidden away from us, it changes the way we see ourselves—it increases our level of respect for ourselves and those who look like us. It changes everything. And that is the reason why this information is still not being taught in schools to this very day.”12
It is crucial to recognize that the Goddess many of us know as Isis is the ancient Nubian Goddess, Auset—who was later renamed by the Greeks. Contributor Olivia Church explains some of this process in her upcoming book: “From earth, sea, and sky, to life, death, and magic, Isis’ powers became all encompassing. During the Graeco-Roman Period, starting in 332 BCE, Mediterranean culture flooded Egypt, bringing its Gods to Egypt and taking Egyptian Gods across the sea. The Greeks and Romans who travelled to Egypt interpreted Egyptian religion through their own eyes, thus merging and assimilating cultural ideas (Stadler, 2017). It is during this time that Isis underwent transformations which are recognisable to how we view her today (Bowden, 2010). The Greeks and Romans attributed new areas of influence and symbols to Isis, leading her to gain more and more epithets, until she was thus-named Isis myrionymos, or Isis of innumerable names (McCabe, 2007). At the height of this period there was little beyond her divine sphere of influence.”13
Dr. Muata Abhaya Ashby has extensively explained how redressing misconceptions and errors around geography and traditions is necessary for world healing. “Ancient Egyptian culture and philosophy is crucial to the understanding of world history and spirituality. One of the misconceptions which is still promoted and prevalent in modern times is that Egypt is not a part of, or located on, the continent of Africa. Rather, it is espoused that Egypt is in the Middle East. This information is incorrect, as Egypt is where it has always been located, though in history it extended beyond its current margins, in the northeast corner of the African Continent. Further, it is widely believed by others that even though Egypt may be in Africa, that it was not an African country, and still others may agree that it was an African country, but not originally founded and populated by “black” African people… These errors must be redressed in order for humanity to move forward… Africa provides a common ground, literally and figuratively, for humanity to come together as… the spiritual roots of all religions and spiritual traditions can be traced there as well… The world community needs to have the knowledge of its African human and spiritual origins so that Africa can take its rightful place as the ‘parent’ of all humanity. It is important to understand that the names of the Ancient Egyptian divinities which have been used widely in Western literature and by Western scholars are actually Greek interpretations of the Kamitan (Ancient Egyptian) names.”14
Acknowledging and revering our ancient Mother Auset is an important step toward reconciliation.
Lucia Chiavola Birnbaum Ph.D. wrote, “Slave traders, slaveholders, and imperialists (european, arab, and north american) enslaved Africa’s peoples. African resources were stolen, african treasures sacked, icons and other art objects were looted and taken away. African traditions were appropriated, destroyed, distorted, or suppressed. What remains in Africa today is what could not be stolen: the memory of the dark mother in rock engravings, cave paintings, other art, and rituals.”15
It is time to bring these images and rituals back in the public eye.16 Art and rituals are perhaps even more important than the written word. There is no denying the pull of ancient symbols on our psyches. They go beyond ‘logic’ into the deep recesses of the heart. When we take this a step further and incorporate rituals honoring the Divine Female, we begin to heal ourselves.
Isis remains a powerful archetype for many women throughout the world. Understanding where She originated from is critically important. Elinor W. Gadon wrote, “While the Goddess indeed had many names, many manifestations throughout human history, she is ultimately one supreme reality. Only after the patriarchal Indo-Europeans overthrew the cultures where the Goddess had flourished from earliest times and imposed the worship of their sky gods was her identity fractured into myriad goddesses, each with an all-too-human personality. We know these goddesses best from Greek and Roman mythology.”17 We also know that these myths are usually distorted by patriarchal thought.
Goddesses have been defragramented and disempowered throughout modern history. I have come to realize during the course of putting this anthology together that we still have quite a lot of digging to do. My hunch is that we are missing out on the full divinity of Auset when we only focus on what we have learned about Isis. There is likely a richer, untainted HERstory still hidden which must be brought to the forefront.
That said, I want to acknowledge the complexity of this. How do you even begin to reconfigure a Goddess that most of the western world knows by a different name?
I was oblivious to the name change when we began this book. We amended the name of the anthology to include both names—and extended the timeline for publication so that I could re-write this introduction. At times, this book felt messy and tedious. I was mad at myself and at my ignorance—and even at the entire educational system. My sisters walked me through it with great insight and compassion. Although I have acknowledged them at the end of the book, I would like to give special thanks to contributors Tyreesha Garrett, Olivia Church, Sharon Smith and Arlene Bailey for helping me sort this out. And of course to my mother, Pat Daly who edited my drafts tirelessly.
I put out these anthologies, not because I have all the answers, but because I am searching for answers myself. I want to unlock all that has been buried in our world regarding the divine feminine. I am so grateful for each of the sisters who brought this anthology to life. I learned and healed so much from each unique share.
May the words and art within this anthology uncover what patriarchy has tried to bury—and may every woman become sovereign unto herself through the wisdom of The Goddess of Ten Thousand Names.
(To be continued)
Details of On the Wings of Isis are found here.