0:06

My name is Grace and you're listening to the Homebody

0:09

Podcast. Hi, everyone, and welcome to today's episode. I am

0:29

so happy to be joined by Gabriella Gutierriez. And

0:33

Gabriella is a writer, a scholar, a teacher of the

0:36

mythic, imagination, mysticism and ancient

0:40

history. Her work stems from her decade long

0:43

studies with shamans and renunciants around the world and is

0:47

focused on the revival of the spiritual traditions in pre patriarchal

0:51

Europe. She teaches and offers distance healing in person and

0:54

online, and her writing and independent research can be found on her stub

0:58

stack under a fig tree. I'm so excited to be having

1:02

Gabriella here for this episode because I feel like a lot of her

1:05

work fits in so beautifully and perfectly with a lot of the things that

1:09

we're honing in on and curating around. For this season of

1:13

the podcast, which a lot of which is about the house of the goddess

1:17

or the house of the feminine or the third house is what we call it

1:19

in astrology. So I feel really excited to be

1:23

jumping in with that. Gabriella, is there any other

1:27

context or anything else that you would like to add

1:30

about yourself, about how you're showing up today? Anything else

1:34

that you would like the listeners to know? Just greetings from Devon. I've

1:38

just arrived back from Australia for a little while and there's blue

1:41

skies at last, and there's warmth and there's a

1:45

freshness in the air that you only really get in Britain. It's

1:49

really specific to this land, so it's just really nice to have a

1:53

call from here, because last we talked, I was in Australia, wasn't I? And there's

1:56

just something magical about this land that I think in line with

2:00

the themes that you want to talk about and so just want to bring in

2:04

the importance of place that we're calling in from as well into our

2:07

conversation. I love that. It's

2:11

very much a place that I have a lot

2:15

of personal, inner longings around, but

2:19

have never actually been to Great Britain. And it's something I'm

2:22

excited to make a pilgrimage one day. We're going to talk

2:26

a lot about your research on the goddess and female

2:30

religious experience in ancient Europe in particular.

2:34

And I'm wondering if you could sort of kick us off by

2:37

telling us how did this research find you

2:41

or how did you find it, if you feel it more that way. And what

2:45

was sort of the beginning of feeling like this is something that you really want

2:48

to spend your life looking into and storying back

2:52

into our field of knowing. Yeah, I think

2:55

I've got my mother to thank for that. She was

2:59

always interested in women's religious experience and

3:03

women's history, and she always kind of

3:06

kept my and my sister's eyes open to the

3:10

gaps in our history and what we don't know about the

3:13

women who are our ancestors.

3:17

And she had this book by Meryl

3:20

Stone called when God was a woman.

3:24

And I read that book when I was, like, ten,

3:28

and it just blasted my mind

3:32

and my heart open to another possibility,

3:35

to an inquiry that's kind of underlined my

3:39

life around. Where

3:42

were the women in the history books

3:46

and in the class settings at

3:50

school when we studied any kind of background,

3:54

any kind of historical material, where were the women? That was

3:57

just the question that always came up for me. And so I just

4:01

started to try to answer those questions through my own

4:05

inquiry. And that led me to lots of

4:09

phenomenal people, archaeologists and

4:13

independent researchers and

4:16

archaeologists who are kind of pseudo

4:20

archaeologists, I could say, like, particularly in the Balkan

4:23

Peninsula, who have a totally different

4:27

understanding of history that isn't yet kind of accepted by

4:30

mainstream education there or anywhere, actually.

4:34

So I think that when you set an intention,

4:37

life conspires to meet it in some way or another,

4:41

you're just introduced to people. And I think that's been

4:45

happening for me for the last 15 years or so.

4:49

And so I've just only now started to put

4:52

it all together and started to transmit it through writing,

4:56

through workshops, through lectures.

5:00

So, yeah, it's been a long time coming.

5:04

In your opinion, from your perspective,

5:07

what is sort of the magic of this

5:11

moment, or even the importance of reviving or

5:15

bringing this back into our awareness in this moment, at this point in

5:19

time, or our cultural experience? That's a great

5:23

question, one I hope I can do justice

5:26

too. From what I understand,

5:30

based on my findings, there was once

5:34

a worldview that existed

5:38

in what we call prehistory. So

5:42

there's nuances as to when, as to the dates of when

5:45

that changed to our timeline.

5:49

But prehistory usually covers everything up

5:53

until ancient history, so up until just after the

5:57

Iron Age. And what I

6:00

found is that there was a worldview, and the further back we go, the

6:04

more refined it was. That was

6:08

life affirming and that was

6:11

Earth centric, and that believed

6:15

in a regenerative force that most

6:19

often, when symbolized, took the form

6:22

of a female deity or of the female

6:26

body that we understand as a goddess. And that's the

6:30

language that we use to define that

6:34

being. But I think it's very interesting

6:37

to sort of try to meet the ancient mind on its

6:41

own terms, as opposed to on our terms. And

6:45

so when we go, okay, what could these people

6:48

have believed? Or what was their

6:52

relationship with this force that was often

6:56

symbolized by the female body, but was also symbolized by

7:00

bullhorns and bees

7:03

and serpents. And that

7:07

was animistic at its core

7:11

that believed that everything in the world has an

7:14

intelligence or a life force. Within

7:18

shamanism, you call it a spirit, but everything has

7:21

life. And therefore everything can be interacted

7:25

with and participated with. And

7:29

so I think that this cosmology that

7:32

was essentially the first religion. And again,

7:36

that's a modern term that we use to define a set of customs and

7:40

beliefs so that we understand each other. This

7:43

religion can offer us, I think, a

7:47

lot of insight into how to best navigate the questions

7:50

and the problematics of our current times.

7:54

And I think that there is something to say about

7:58

a people who understood in this

8:02

life force, regenerative principle

8:05

that moved within all things. That was life

8:09

and death, and life and death that was cyclical, not

8:12

linear, and with which we could actively participate

8:16

through our imagination. And the imagination was

8:20

not fantasy or make believe as we associate it with

8:24

now. It was the bridge that

8:27

facilitated a movement to the

8:31

imaginal, to this life force,

8:35

this place of intelligence and

8:38

compassion and illumination and wisdom

8:42

that exists within all things. That was a long

8:46

answer, I think, to your question, but they're big topics that are sort of

8:49

hard to put words to. No, I think

8:53

that's perfect. I feel like I was

8:57

noticing as you were talking about that and even earlier when you talked about

9:00

the book that you read when God was a woman. I grew up

9:04

in Christianity, which is like one of the Abrahamic

9:08

religions. And to me, something that

9:11

those, or at least my understanding of them, Christianity is the one that I'm most

9:15

familiar with. They're a lot about up there, like what

9:19

happens later, what happens above us, what happens in the

9:22

transcendental realm.

9:26

And something that was deeply a different book that

9:29

I read that sort of when I was leaving church was Dance of the

9:33

Dissident Daughter by Sue Monk Kidd. And it's sort of her

9:37

version, her story about why is God

9:40

he owned. And it was kind of scratching an itch that

9:44

I didn't really know that I had.

9:48

Why are my desires excluded from this? Why is the planet

9:52

excluded from this? And that's something that I wasn't really

9:55

given permission to have or feel

9:59

justified in. Even the way that you're talking

10:02

about, we have these ways that we be like, oh, that's

10:05

imaginary. And we mean that in a way that it's less smart or it's

10:09

not as something to be trusted, right. Because it's not coming

10:12

through the architecture of academia

10:16

or what have you. These ways that we downplay all of these things, we

10:20

make them seem silly. And actually, they're perhaps original in many

10:24

ways. None of that is in any particular

10:28

order. But I was wondering if you have any reflections you'd love to respond back

10:31

to about that. Yes, I think that there's a lot

10:35

to say about how

10:40

humans imagine an image, right. Like,

10:44

the way that we imagine or,

10:48

you know, the way that we understand the world around us

10:52

is through imagery. And I think that this was

10:57

the first religious scripture, if you will, were the

11:00

images on the caves, on the Paleolithic caves

11:04

that were images that sought to transcribe

11:08

the divine or the imaginal,

11:13

and those images became icons.

11:17

And henry koibar was a french

11:21

theosopher, late 20th century, and he would talk

11:24

about the difference between idols and

11:27

icons. And I think that this is a really important thing

11:31

to sort of start to enter into relationship with when we talk

11:35

about the goddess and the move towards

11:39

a more life affirming cosmology

11:42

again, because what he talked about was

11:47

that essentially, though, we started

11:50

to try to transcribe or

11:53

record our religious experience through image, and

11:57

these images became these icons

12:01

or icons that hold knowledge,

12:04

that transmit something like the image of the mother

12:08

Mary holding her child to her breast is an icon. Right?

12:12

It holds so much story

12:16

and emotion. It's emotive, it wakes

12:20

all kinds of things up in us when we really engage with the

12:23

image. That is the power that an

12:27

icon holds within religious experience. But the

12:30

problem that Henry corbin

12:35

really highlights is that icons became

12:38

idols. And so what we did was we thought

12:42

or we began to identify the image

12:45

with the god, and so the

12:49

images that were created became the

12:52

gods, as opposed to a transmission for

12:56

them or a symbol that could wake something up in

12:59

us. And then we saw this

13:03

move as we did that, as we changed our

13:07

icons to idols, we began to move

13:10

towards a more fundamentalist and

13:13

unilateral literal way of

13:17

thinking and of seeing the world. And I think that

13:20

this is the big move and the potential for

13:24

a big transformation in our world,

13:28

in our global cosmology. I think where we go?

13:31

What happens when we start to see

13:35

religious symbolism as a

13:39

symbol for something that is so

13:42

multilayered and polyvalent

13:46

that there is so much there that will speak differently to

13:50

my heart than it will to yours, than it will to

13:53

anyone else's and that that direct experience

13:58

is valid and is true and that there isn't one

14:01

way. And I think that the symbol of the goddess is

14:05

a really helpful one in waking that

14:08

thousandfold possibility up in all of us, because

14:12

she is both death and life and everything in between.

14:16

The god began to be associated solely with life

14:19

and solely with light and with the

14:23

upper realms, the sort of paradisial

14:27

realms, the heavens above, and the need

14:31

to transcend our physicality and

14:34

the physical world in order to get there. And I think what's

14:38

really interesting about these older cosmologies is that actually,

14:42

from what I understand, god was right here.

14:46

Like god was in the bones, in the blood, in the

14:50

earth, in the soil, in the sea and the rivers and the trees and

14:54

the deer. Just this idea, I think, like you

14:57

spoke about, that the abrahamic religions are

15:01

often more focused on the upper.

15:05

And what these older

15:08

cosmologies held at their core is this

15:11

understanding that the life

15:15

force or god is in

15:19

everything. And so there was no

15:22

need to go anywhere other than

15:26

here. And

15:30

an example of the benefit that that kind

15:34

of cosmology can have on

15:37

the sort of social structures of life

15:41

is one of the things that I was really

15:45

interested in and have done quite a bit of writing. On is

15:49

the notion? Well, more like the fact, actually, because we

15:53

have evidence for this, which is great,

15:56

that for almost 2000 years

16:00

in the neolithic, in the Balkan peninsula of Eastern

16:04

Europe, the peoples who lived

16:07

there lived without war, lived

16:11

free from war. There is no evidence of warfare

16:16

or any kind of armor for

16:20

about, well, just over 1500 years,

16:23

almost 2000 years. And this

16:27

points towards this extraordinary I

16:31

mean, it's kind of hard to wrap our head around when you think about it,

16:34

that's almost as long as Christianity has been a thing

16:38

with no war. So almost 2000

16:41

years of peace. And when I asked this

16:45

archaeologist, that was the first to bring it to my attention, in

16:48

Serbia, he works at an archaeological site just

16:52

outside the city of Belgrade on one of the Neolithic settlements

16:55

there. And he said to me,

17:01

I think they had a three part formula

17:05

that allowed them to live in

17:08

peace. I asked him, what was the

17:11

formula? And he goes,

17:15

it was a tryptic code of

17:18

conduct. And it came down to

17:21

being vigilant, responsible and awake.

17:28

And if you were these three things, vigilant,

17:32

responsible and awake, you led a

17:35

peaceful life and therefore you lived in a peaceful

17:39

community. And this isn't to sort of

17:42

glorify a past golden age. I think that and he

17:46

agreed, individual

17:50

dissonance has always been a thing like

17:54

individual feuds. It's not to say that that didn't

17:57

exist, but

18:01

strategized warfare or systematic

18:05

warfare was not a thing. And I think

18:08

that's extraordinary. And I think that tells us a lot about the

18:12

social world that we can create together if we

18:16

lean on those cosmologies. And that kind of code

18:19

of conduct. That made my

18:23

eyes well up a little bit when you said that.

18:27

It's a big one, it's a really big one. And it's something that

18:30

growing up in the age that we're in now,

18:34

it's almost impossible to

18:37

imagine a world like our

18:41

entire economies are supported by war.

18:45

And whenever I hear or come across these philosophies or conversations

18:53

that are just assuming sort of the apex

18:56

of technology and sort of human

19:00

development that we're in right now, a common thing that comes up for me,

19:04

I'm like, we cannot even collectively conceive of what it would be like

19:08

to live without war. To me, that is not an apex of any kind.

19:12

Like we can't conceive of grace in this way.

19:16

So it just feels so nice to hear you say that. This is why I

19:19

think it's so interesting to try to meet the ancient mind on its own

19:22

terms. And that's a concept that

19:26

isn't mine. That came from my dissertation

19:30

supervisor, Alice Oswald, who's a

19:33

phenomenal poet, award winning poet. She's one

19:37

of the most extraordinary women I've had the pleasure of

19:41

studying with. And she put that question to me

19:44

once when we were in one of our tutorials for my

19:48

dissertation, and she went, how can we meet the ancient mind on

19:52

its own terms as opposed to on our terms? And I just

19:55

thought that's so, you know, what is it that

19:59

the mind of the Neolithic in Eastern Europe

20:04

thought? How did they hold themselves?

20:07

And what is it that can shift in us when we

20:11

move our attention in that direction, as opposed to imposing our

20:15

own understanding on them and our wish for a sort of

20:18

golden age or a dark age, depending on who

20:22

you ask. If you're very involved in

20:26

an Abrahamic religion, for you, that was a dark age.

20:29

If you're involved in the goddess movement, that was a golden

20:33

age. I think it's really interesting when we

20:37

go, okay, but what was it for them? How can

20:41

we see it from their eyes? Because otherwise it's just another

20:44

form of colonialism, actually, from the modern times to

20:48

the past, where we're trying to impose our own way of

20:52

seeing onto a people as opposed to trying to see through

20:55

their eyeshadow,

21:06

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22:58

I wondering if you'll speak a little bit. You were speaking

23:01

about icon and symbol, and we've spoken a little about

23:05

the imaginal and, you know, and I think a lot

23:09

about this culture that we're in. We're in such a culture

23:13

of divulgence and over explaining

23:16

and marketing. It's almost

23:20

like any mystery is

23:24

there, almost like is no mystery. Like you can't even watch a movie without them

23:27

having to take the script and explain every possible thing to you within

23:31

the first 20 minutes. And I'm wondering if you

23:35

would I love the quote from Lorca

23:38

on your website so much. It says, only the mystery allows us to

23:42

live. Only the mystery. And I think something about

23:45

symbology and icon and even

23:49

know you speak on your website as well about how

23:53

women's wisdom traditions have really survived by hiding

23:56

and hiding in plain sight. And I'm wondering if you'll speak a little bit about

23:59

this sort of the value of mystery or of hiding or

24:03

potentially how or in some of the ways,

24:07

like even storytelling. Right? The point of storytelling is experience,

24:11

not necessarily divulgence or explanation. And

24:14

again, that's not really a question, but just something I'd love to throw onto your

24:18

plate. Yeah, no, they're great points as well. I think

24:22

that maybe a good in

24:25

would be there's something about hearing

24:29

somebody's experience of something

24:32

intimate, right, like a dream

24:35

or a love letter from a

24:38

beloved in the early days of romance

24:43

and not trying to interpret their

24:47

experience. There's something

24:50

about listening to somebody tell you

24:54

something of their experience or of their

24:57

relationship with something mysterious

25:02

without responding with interpretation and

25:05

going, oh, well, in your dream, owl means

25:09

this and a spider web means that,

25:13

and losing your tooth means this.

25:17

Or in a love letter, oh, he said this, so it means that, or she

25:20

said that, so it means this. Because that's what it means for me. And there's

25:23

something about holding ourselves within the

25:27

mystery. So to

25:30

allow for those things that

25:34

are by nature mysterious

25:37

to have their own, to have their

25:41

way with us, to really have their

25:45

way with us. And I think that the only way that we can

25:49

really fully

25:52

and personally interact

25:55

with mystery

25:59

is by surrendering to

26:03

it and leaving our

26:07

analytic, calculated, strategic

26:10

mind behind for a little bit,

26:14

going, okay, can I just be in relationship with

26:18

this without trying to understand it from an

26:22

analytical or rational point, but just allowing

26:26

it to have its way with me. And I think that that's the

26:30

way that Lorga lived his life

26:33

without trying to romanticize him. He was human

26:37

like all of us. But I do know that he

26:41

had a way of being

26:44

intimate with everything that he was exposed

26:48

to and in a

26:51

deeply romantic relationship. And what I mean by

26:55

that is that he was in the romance of it, like

27:00

in the love affair, in a

27:03

devotional relationship, with life. And that

27:07

meant that life had a

27:11

that life was trusted.

27:16

And so it wasn't about trying to

27:20

categorize or pinpoint or go, I get it now. I understand.

27:23

Now it's like, okay, I've got this information,

27:27

and now I go into the next question and then the next

27:31

question. And I think that's what's really beautiful

27:34

about being in relationship with

27:38

wisdom. I think that there were lineages

27:42

of predominantly women, also men,

27:47

who were in direct relationship

27:51

with the goddess of wisdom. Some called

27:54

her Sophia in Ireland. She was

27:58

sovereignty. She was Al

28:01

Hakima in the Middle East.

28:06

She was a force that was

28:10

lettered and learned and that

28:13

informed those who were devoted to

28:17

her about the mysteries.

28:20

This is a slightly separate I'm going off on a bit of a tangent,

28:24

but I think that it's it's related in the sense that

28:28

there's a relationship that we can begin to

28:32

embark on with wisdom

28:36

that is a relationship with the mystery. I

28:40

think that that's the beginning of Wisdom to go, oh, yeah, I

28:44

know that. I don't know everything. Like, God

28:48

is the mystery, the great mystery. And so

28:52

what does it mean to live a life in devotional,

28:55

intimate, direct relationship with it, not through

28:59

somebody else's interpretation?

29:02

So that can go as far as saying, let's

29:06

say, like, the contraculture to Abrahamic. Religion is

29:10

the new age movement. And within the new age

29:14

movement, there are notions that are now

29:18

spoken of in a way that is quite

29:21

dogmatic like. We all have

29:24

chakras. There is karma.

29:28

We need to ascend into a

29:32

higher plane. There's a code of conduct.

29:36

And I'm weary and a little bit

29:40

cynical about it because it feels

29:43

like the essence of it feels quite similar

29:47

to that which it's trying to rebute to the

29:51

dogmas of the older religions or the Abrahamic

29:54

religions that it's trying to rebuke. So

29:58

I think it's really interesting when we start to go, okay,

30:02

yes, it's likely that the body has energy centers

30:06

that is part of a spiritual tradition

30:10

that was in India that is very separate to what we

30:14

were living in Europe at the time that that was being developed.

30:18

How true is that for me? And so we check in with our

30:22

own relationship with our bodies and with the divine and with the mystery, and we

30:26

go, what is my direct

30:30

understanding of my body, of my

30:34

worldview and my cosmology and my relationship with

30:37

the divine, with the earth?

30:41

And to each kind of discern our own way of relating with

30:45

these things that is true and sincere for us,

30:49

not imposed on us by somebody else's

30:53

interpretation. Yeah, a lot of it was making me think a lot

30:56

about just this way that, like you said, the romance of it just this way

31:00

that following the scent of something versus knowing

31:04

something. And I love thinking of it

31:07

as a romance because really the driver, I think, when

31:11

we're feeling romanticized or seduced by something is just to connect it's just

31:15

to be with. Yeah, there's something about the allowing the word surrender is

31:19

feeling very alive for me right now and also being able to sort of

31:22

tolerate because the unknown feels so much like chaos,

31:26

feels so much like void. And if there's void, then what do we

31:30

do? Like this way that we want to codify everything and make it explainable and

31:33

know the right answer, that I can make other people know the right

31:37

answer? It feels a little bit about trying to control that chaos

31:41

that is the mystery a little bit.

31:44

And I'm wondering, I was thinking too of just

31:47

the way some of the different ways that we think of this idea

31:51

of holy spaces or temples and what's appropriate there and thinking about going to a

31:55

temple and in this particular religion the holy person is someone

31:59

who doesn't eat and never has sex and doesn't have hair. And then you go

32:03

to this temple and this religion and it's like you literally go to the temple

32:06

to have sex and have a feast and have super long hair. They're completely

32:09

different ways of engaging with what we conceive of as holy and life

32:13

giving. There's a deeply

32:17

human longing to find the beloved.

32:26

And the Sufis understood that very well.

32:30

The beloved as God? Essentially.

32:36

And I think that that longing drives us to do

32:39

all sorts of curious things

32:44

and who's to say

32:48

right, what's right or

32:53

yeah, I mean, if it's right for you, by all means, like I take my

32:57

hat off to you and onwards, so long

33:00

as it's not harming.

33:04

I mean, everything harms to a degree, but that it's causing the least harm

33:08

possible. But I think that

33:12

part of the issue with the sort of

33:15

niche that I'm involved in studying, which is

33:19

women's religious practice

33:23

and this sort of life affirming

33:26

cosmology that goes beyond the

33:30

gender of woman. That is a cosmology that was

33:34

practiced by all. I think what's sort of

33:37

important to remember is that

33:41

for a very long time

33:44

and for at least the last 5000 years, there has

33:48

been a systematic eradication

33:52

of that cosmology. So that worldview was systematically

33:59

suppressed first by the Indo

34:02

European invasions of the Balkan Peninsula during the

34:06

Neolithic. So when

34:11

there were lots of cultures who lived there, but a brilliant

34:15

thinker who did an important body of work there is called

34:19

Maria Gambutas. She was a Lithuanian

34:22

archaeomythologist. So she introduced, or sort of

34:26

created this school of thought and this

34:29

methodology that put together archaeology and

34:33

mythology. And she believed that in order to really

34:37

understand the remnants of the world that these people

34:40

left behind, we had to study the artifacts with their

34:44

myths, with their stories.

34:48

And so she developed this

34:52

hypothesis called the Kurgan hypothesis,

34:55

which basically says that there were a peaceful

34:59

peoples which coincides with what the Serbian

35:02

archaeologist believes. Dragon Yankovich is his

35:06

name. I realize I didn't mention it before

35:09

that for almost 2000 years these people in the

35:13

Neolithic who venerated a mother goddess,

35:17

lived in peace. They were

35:21

then invaded in three waves

35:24

by the Indo Europeans. So the peoples who lived in

35:28

the Kogan steppe east of

35:32

the Balkan peninsula, and

35:35

they basically suppressed the

35:39

peaceful peoples and introduced warfare over

35:42

a period of almost 4000 years. So it took a

35:46

long time, but the result was that we have virtually

35:50

no remnants of that time frame,

35:54

very little artifacts, enough

35:57

to show us that these peoples were

36:01

earth honoring and life affirming, as I said, and

36:04

peaceful, but not enough to paint a full picture of our European

36:08

history. And so

36:12

this is something that I think we have to again surrender

36:16

to and make peace with. That

36:21

we will likely, who knows, we will

36:25

likely never have the full picture of where we came

36:28

from. But we do have enough pieces

36:32

to inspire our imagination. And

36:35

so, after those invasions, we moved

36:39

into, I would say, the second

36:43

suppression of this mother

36:47

goddess or life centric cosmology

36:50

happened at the hands of the Mycenaeans. So the mainland

36:54

Greeks over the Minoans in ancient

36:58

Crete, and that was in 1450

37:01

BC. So they were invaded. The

37:05

Mycenians, just like the Indoeuropeans, introduced a male

37:08

godhead that overtook the

37:12

indigenous or the native traditions

37:16

that worshipped a female mother goddess.

37:20

And then we see a similar thing happen later on in the

37:23

medieval era with the Inquisition

37:27

that was 800 years long and

37:30

essentially sought to eradicate earth

37:34

based wisdom. Well, it may

37:38

sound a bit extreme, but I have called it this in the past and I

37:41

still kind of stick to it. It was a genocide of women

37:45

and knowledge. It's hard to call it anything else. Like

37:48

it ticks all the boxes for genocide.

37:53

So this is our inheritance in the

37:56

west. This is what we're now carrying, these 5000

38:00

over a period of 5000 years, this persecution

38:04

of woman, and

38:07

particularly woman who knows

38:11

woman who is with Sophia or Gnosis or Al

38:15

Hakima or sovereignty. And so we're

38:19

just starting to heal from that. We're not there yet.

38:22

We still live in a world where in some countries women can't

38:26

gather to have the kinds of conversations we're having.

38:30

So we're highly privileged in that degree. But

38:33

also it shows us how much further we've still got to

38:37

go, how these issues are still very

38:40

real. You mentioned earlier some of

38:44

the symbols that have sort of been, we've discovered through

38:48

time that were frequently associated with these more

38:52

earth centric mother goddess religions. You

38:55

mentioned the bullhorns, the bees and the serpent.

38:59

And I'm wondering if there are any ways

39:03

that you would like to just speak to any of those

39:06

symbols as potentially

39:10

portals or icons or doorways through which we

39:14

could understand or open to seeing the world a

39:18

little differently than we do now. There's one particular

39:22

symbol that I find very. Interesting that is. It's

39:25

called the Labyrinth and some folks may be familiar

39:29

with it. It was first recorded in Crete,

39:33

but there are very similar symbols

39:37

or representations from old Europe or

39:41

this Neolithic Europe. And

39:46

the Labyrinth is essentially

39:49

two triangles that meet at the

39:53

point at the center with a

39:57

line underneath it that looks like an

40:00

axe. Some people call it the double axe, sort

40:04

of like a triangular infinity symbol on its

40:07

side with a line through the middle at the knot

40:12

and nobody knows what it means.

40:17

It's one of the great mysteries within archaeology.

40:21

It's fascinating, but with the

40:25

study of archaeomythology, you can start to

40:28

piece together and imagine a story around

40:32

the symbol and it starts to become alive. This is the thing about

40:36

icons. They speak, you just have to have ears to listen.

40:43

And this particular symbol

40:49

is potentially a

40:52

doorway into the

40:56

original or the first cosmologies

41:01

that understood that in order to live

41:04

fully, something has to die.

41:08

And that lived very

41:11

close to the possibility of death.

41:15

And that it was that closeness that allowed for

41:19

a fullness of life. And so

41:23

it may be that the symbol was because

41:27

the symbol was I mean, oftentimes it's depicted as an axe

41:34

that many have thought was a symbol of war

41:38

and violence. I don't think it was used that

41:41

way. We have images of women and priestesses

41:45

holding the double axe in religious

41:48

environments with bees and

41:52

serpents and bullhorns around them. This is mainly in

41:56

Crete and who seem to be in

42:00

ecstatic altered states practicing some

42:04

kind of religious activity and they're holding these double

42:08

axes. Those women weren't at war.

42:11

And so what it has woken up for me is this

42:15

idea of the death mysteries and

42:18

that in order to be fully alive, you have to be

42:22

familiar with the force that is death

42:26

and that you walk in between them. So you walk

42:30

between these two loops of infinity. One is life and one is

42:33

death. And I think that

42:37

that symbol can speak to

42:41

that and can wake up what the

42:45

ancients knew. So there

42:48

is much we don't know, but when we look at their artwork

42:52

and their symbols and

42:56

the artifacts that they left behind, they speak to

43:00

us. And so we start to receive through the

43:03

imagination and it pieces together something

43:07

in us. So I think

43:10

that there's something really

43:14

fun, actually, that can happen, really

43:18

inspiring and motivating

43:22

when we start to relate with these old

43:26

teachings or this world that was left behind

43:30

with curiosity and allowing

43:34

it to just open something in us, allowing it to flower as opposed

43:37

to define and expand as opposed

43:41

to contract. And that does

43:45

something for us as well. That in itself is healing because that ripples out

43:49

into the way that we interact with the rest of life as well.

43:53

I love that I have not heard of that symbol and I'm going I'll nerd

43:56

out on it super hard. I'm like, I wonder if that's the symbol that I

44:00

randomly drew after my meditation this morning. I'm very curious. As

44:04

you were describing it, I was like, that might have come through earlier today. We'll see.

44:12

Yeah. I love hearing that. And I think there is so much wisdom in what

44:15

you're saying, and that is such a beautiful anyone

44:19

who's ever grown anything, even if it's just like a plant in their backyard,

44:23

like all the soil that we have that we need to plant is

44:26

made of all dead things.

44:30

Yes. I'm wondering,

44:34

as we work our way towards wrapping up, is there anything that you

44:37

feel like is sort of on your heart to speak about

44:41

or to share that I haven't made room for or that I haven't asked? Or

44:45

maybe you feel like is just sort of prickling after some of the things that

44:48

we talked about that you'd like to share before we wrap up? I just brought

44:52

a book of poetry, and I thought that we could have a poem.

44:56

Beautiful. And I often have a book that sort

45:00

of speaks to me when I'm doing certain things, and

45:03

today it was Mary Oliver devotions,

45:07

and I think it's quite in line with lots that we've been talking

45:10

about. So if I may pick a Mary

45:14

Oliver and she can sort of wrap up this

45:18

conversation, she'll do it much better than I ever could. And

45:22

I don't know if you've heard of bibliomancy. It's a practice that I love to

45:25

do. So you flick the page at

45:29

any page, and the poem that

45:33

comes out to you, or the piece of prose poem in this case,

45:37

will be an icon. So let's see who wants

45:44

to be here with us and anyone listening today.

45:50

Water snake. I saw him in a dry

45:53

place on a hot day, a traveler making his

45:57

way from one pond to another. And he

46:01

lifted up his charry face and looked at me with his gravel

46:04

eyes, and the feather of his tongue shot in

46:08

and out of his otherwise clamped mouth.

46:11

And I stopped on the path to give him room, and he

46:15

went past me with his head high, loathing me, I think,

46:19

for my long legs, my poor body like a post,

46:23

my many fingers, for he didn't linger. But

46:26

touching the other side of the path, he headed in

46:30

long lunges and quick. Heaves straight to the nearest

46:34

basin of sweet black water and weeds and

46:37

solitude, like an old sword that suddenly picked

46:41

itself up and went off swinging,

46:44

swinging through the green leaves.

46:49

Mary Oliver never

46:52

disappoints. She never does. She's like the goddess of

46:56

the moment. I feel like, indeed, the capital M

47:00

moment. The now, where do you like people

47:03

to find you on the Internet? If people listening want to engage

47:07

more with your work, could you share with them where they could do that?

47:11

And then also, if you have anything coming up this fall that you would like

47:14

people to be particularly aware of. Please share that as

47:18

well. The two places would be just

47:22

my website, which is Gabriellamayagutieres Net.

47:27

My name is a bit of a mouthful, my middle name is Welsh and my

47:31

last name is Spanish, so it's not the easiest pronunciation

47:35

for the Anglo Saxon, but that's my website.

47:38

And my substac, where I publish

47:42

biweekly writings, is under a

47:45

fig tree. And

47:49

I do have an

47:52

online program starting in September, which will

47:56

be on the Bee priestesses of Bronze Age

47:59

Crete. And I have another course also

48:03

online starting in November called The Three Secret Selves,

48:07

which is a marriage of mysticism,

48:10

mythology and ancient history.

48:14

So all of that's on my website, as well as the

48:17

monthly gatherings, I do dismemberment

48:21

ceremonies to stay close to the death mysteries, of course,

48:24

and new moon rites. So, yeah, that's all on

48:28

my website. Beautiful. And

48:32

we'll have all the links to all of those things below in the show

48:35

notes. And thank you so much for coming on. It was such a

48:39

joy to connect with you and just all of your wisdom and research

48:43

and I can tell so much of your heart and yourself is in all this.

48:47

And so thank you for sharing not only your wisdom but also yourself in this

48:50

conversation. I appreciate it and I know the listeners will enjoy it as well.

48:53

Well, thank you Grace, and thank you for having me. It's been a delight.

49:03

Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed the episode, please take

49:07

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49:22

we shared with you today. Our intro and outro music was created by

49:25

artists Aaron Palavik and Jared Kelly, our podcast logo was

49:29

created by Elaine Stevenson and this show is produced by Softer Sound

49:33

Studio. Thank you for being here. Be well.

49:36

Peaceful.