There is a seed deep underground that the serpent knows about. Inanna knew. Isis did too.
“What were they doing, our ancestral mothers, with their hands full of snakes?”
I am standing quietly, resting my forehead on a cherry tree, talking to a viper.
This summer has been a race against the birds – ‘sky watchers’ with their wasteful beaks, tearing holes in sacred flesh, cherries swinging like pendulums from the tree I planted forty years ago, when I was young and fit. The boughs hang red, ripe fruit rotting under foot – a decaying carmine carpet, nutrient rich.
The tree I planted has blossomed into a fertile temple, whilst I flounder in my hot, dry, fat years – body violently rejecting all that is artificial, with flashes of heat. I have become a two headed, fire breathing monster – a dragon, incinerating my way though everything I find intolerable. My flame thrower is so deadly, I’ve had to retreat into nature, before I do real damage. I need to dig. I need dirt under my fingernails – that is my plug into sanity. When I’m in the garden I am like a pig, snuffling and rooting about in the earth. Something deep under the soil has summoned me. It is the Time Of Covid, and a portal has opened.
Sophia the snake slithers up the cherry tree. She is dainty and delicate and sparkles like moire silk. Ever since Eve was expelled from the Garden Of Eden and her Wisdom Serpent, rendered legless, snakes have missed their special bond with women.
‘We serpents miss dancing with the descendants of Ishtar,” sighs Sophia, “our guts need to feel the vibration of the gyrating Goddess, stepping barefoot upon the Earth.”
Snakes detest the biblical version of that story – with venom! They find it barbaric and hate that it twists woman into the villain of humanity.
“Think.” says Sophia.
“WOMEN ARE THE VILLAIN OF HUMANITY”
“It is truly absurd. But that was the propaganda of the time and the closer ancient history got to Biblical times, the more demeaned women became – and what’s more, women are still having to live with the vestiges of this nonsense.”
The light catches Sophia’s eye. It glimmers like obsidian.
“I know how you like to dig,” she whispers. “You are opening up to the divine messaging of the female mysteries. Lean your back against the cherry tree, close your eyes and let your intuition answer my questions.”
“Why do you think the Ancient Greeks believed that Hades had to abduct and rape Persephone so she could descend into the underworld, becoming Autumn and Winter, when she could go there of her own accord?” she asked.
“Why does the patriarch think that Demeter mourned her daughter’s absence, as she wintered in the underworld, when it was the chilling effectiveness of the Rape Myth she was mourning?
“I’ll tell you why,” interjects Sophia, before I can answer.
“They wanted to subjugate the cycles of the seasons. They crushed our trust in the seeds of regeneration, just like they crushed Persephone, beneath their heavy hand-tooled boots. They wanted us to believe the reassurance, that life will burst forth each Spring, could only be given, if there was a rape, that violently put Mother Earth in her place, firmly under the iron shod boot of man. They dominated through ownership and marked their territory.”
“Tell me more,” I urged. We are in lockdown. The pandemic is raging. Humanity is facing tough questions about where it can go from here. Divine Feminine energy is rising up through vents in the Earth, and it feels like patriarchy is in chaos, approaching its death throws and taking down a lot of people with it. I sense I am in the presence of great wisdom. I want to hear Sophia speak. I want to know what she knows.
(To be continued)
*
About Claire Dorey
Published in, Warrior Queen; Answering The Call Of The Morrigan – The Girl God Books, 2021: A Shriek Goddessy and Eel Kundalini, St Patriarch and the Wide Sargasso Sea – words and images
Published in, She Who Summons – Mago Books, 2021: The Seed Who Summons – words and images
Published in, In Defiance of Oppression – The Legacy of Boudicea – The Girl God Books: When The Colour Of Emotion Floods The Nervous System. Earth Mothers and daughters surviving invasion and the stereotypes of misogyny.
Accepted for publication in, Re-Membering with Goddess: Healing the Patriarchal Perpetuation of Trauma – The Girl God Books: Revolutions Of Defiant Ecstasy: Stealing Kali And Goddess Wisdom From The Primordial Wave Of Feminism.
Accepted for publication in, The Crone Initiation and Invitation: Women speak on the Menopause Journey – The Girl God Books: Fat is a Goddess Issue – Gateway to Khaos and Reframing the Menopause.
[Editor’s Note: This piece is included in She Summons: Why… Goddess Feminism, Activism and Spirituality?” Volume 1 (Mago Books, 2021).]
