11/22/2024
Regenerative Rising’s Seleyn DeYarus recently reread “When God Was a Woman” by American author, artist and academic Merlin Stone.
If you have read Stone’s book already, we encourage you to share your reflections in the comments below.
If not, here’s a taste of Seleyn’s commentary on “When God Was a Woman”:
To read this book is to step into a level of scholarly excavation that is both profound and full of merit. Merlin Stone dedicated decades to archeological and cultural analysis of the goddess religions. In applying the Regenerative Mode of Thought: Essence, we can open to the authentic and unique existence of constructs now forgotten. Societies that occupied the birthplaces of the Patriarchal religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, were mostly matrifocal, and likely matrilineal. Their god was a woman – the Great Goddess known by many names and honorifics such as Ishtar, Inanna, Kybele, Tiamat, Nekhebt, Queen of Heaven, Lady of the Universe, Lady of the High Places, Lioness of the Sacred Assembly or simply Her Holiness. What Stone discovered, as she studied the ancient evidence unearthed and interpreted by those first archeologists, revealed long standing biases against the notion of a female deity. But nevertheless, it is objectively impossible to deny the evidence as merely fertility symbols. There is no doubt that indeed the first deity of humans was the progenitor of life, woman. The connection between the Paleolithic female figurines and the emergence of Goddess worshiping societies of the Neolithic periods in the Near and Middle East suggest an ongoing progression of a Mother Goddess.
To read Seleyn DeYarus’ full reflection, we invite you to subscribe to our monthly newsletter by Thursday, November 28th via regenerativerising.org.
