Missing Witches - WF Starr Goode - We Are Waking Up...Popping The Bubble of Patriarchy's Spell

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00:00:25.060 welcome star goody to the missing witches podcast our listeners who have been long-time

00:00:35.880 listeners will have heard your name um i discovered your work while i was researching

00:00:42.140 maria gimboutas so we'll get into that but listeners you might recognize star goody from

00:00:50.120 the goddess in art series that I discovered in this journey of discovery and just absolutely

00:00:56.560 fell in love with. I know many of you have written to me to tell me that you've been binging the

00:01:01.320 series since we discovered it together. So welcome, welcome. Oh my goodness, Star Goody.

00:01:07.780 Can you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself beyond what we already know?

00:01:13.100 well of course I don't know what you know but I guess what I want to say is there's been a thread

00:01:22.860 in my life and the thread of my life is to serve the great mother I'll be a feminist to my last

00:01:29.140 breath but that is the thread of my life and sometimes that unfolds over the decades and it

00:01:35.740 started when I went to Berkeley I drove across the Bay Bridge I was raised in a little town

00:01:43.620 on the peninsula and I went to Berkeley and I found the world where I belonged and started

00:01:48.960 the first underground feminist newspaper and then eventually we started at first you know there's 0.98

00:01:57.440 many feminists out in the world of political the playing fields of life which I bless every one of 1.00

00:02:05.120 them and i'm part of that but yet over time some of us had a longing for something else some sort

00:02:12.860 of image of a divine female and that's led us to the goddess too so that is i just want to say

00:02:20.080 that's a thread of my life between doing the tv series many other actions many other things that

00:02:28.620 I've done, belonging to a coven, my coven nemesis since the 1980s, and then writing my She Linda

00:02:37.280 gig book. So that's, that's the thread of my life is to serve the great mother.

00:02:44.660 Can you fill in a little bit of the gap for me between driving over the Bay Bridge and starting 0.95

00:02:49.340 a feminist newspaper? 1.00

00:02:50.700 Well, there isn't really a gap. I went there and I got involved in a CR or consciousness raising group. This is the late 60s. And of course, that was a very of the times occurrence.

00:03:06.620 And it was part of the second wave of feminism, of women sitting in a circle, talking about their lives.

00:03:17.280 Very simple, very profound.

00:03:20.180 And we came to our own.

00:03:22.600 It was the most natural place for me to be.

00:03:26.000 And from that, I met some other women.

00:03:28.840 And then we lived together.

00:03:30.120 And one of the women had a printing press.

00:03:31.940 And we started It Ain't Me, Babe.

00:03:33.700 And first publication was in 1970, where we were storming Harmon Gym on the Berkeley campus because we wanted to have karate lessons because we wanted to defend ourselves against male violence.

00:03:49.420 And at that time, women weren't allowed in the karate classroom at Berkeley?

00:03:55.220 You know, I think that's why it's so important for these kind of cross-generational discussions, because I'm in my 40s.

00:04:04.360 I don't want to out you, but I believe you're in your early 70s.

00:04:08.660 In my heart, I'm eternally young, but okay.

00:04:11.580 But just in terms of the worlds that we grew up in, a lot of our listeners are in their 20s.

00:04:17.980 So they can't even fathom a space where women wouldn't be allowed into a dojo.

00:04:22.880 You know, that's how it was then.

00:04:25.220 Yeah. Yeah. Again, I mean, again, for our younger listeners, like this, this is the world that our mothers, sometimes our grandmothers grew up in. I know my mother told me she had, I think, three or four choices. She could be a housewife, a secretary, a teacher or a nurse.

00:04:43.520 and you'll find that all of her friends from that time either became teachers you know mothers

00:04:49.380 secretaries nurses and for for young women who are young people who are listening to this podcast

00:04:55.560 now I really appreciate Star you bringing this voice of a time where you and your sisters were

00:05:02.640 fighting for the things that we take for granted yes and of course the fight still goes on because

00:05:08.060 the longest war is the war on women and the war on women continues there's a war on nature

00:05:13.420 There's a war on imagination. There's the war on women, which is the basis of all these other wars. Women, we know with the rising of the Me Too movement, and we know that, bless his heart, Jimmy Carter said that the greatest violence was the violence against women, and he was going to devote the rest of his life to fight that violence.

00:05:36.100 i want to come back to something that you just said that i i really would love for you to expand

00:05:43.200 on the war on imagination okay well you know images create cosmological images reinforce

00:05:56.680 and create political systems and of course we live in a patriarchy and this is a change too

00:06:02.220 for all my younger sisters, just the fact that these words like patriarchy are introduced into

00:06:08.300 the zeitgeist. So the rise of the goddess is, to me, part of the most important psychic event of

00:06:20.220 our times, which is the return of the goddess. It's as if life itself, this is long-winded,

00:06:26.440 but i'm getting there it's if life itself or earth or the psyche had to have this rising up

00:06:35.020 this eruption of images of the goddess to restore balance to our art of out of balance world so now

00:06:42.100 we have these other cosmological images of a divine female a female with you know that

00:06:47.900 represents our creativity and our power and our sexuality so this changes the political systems

00:06:55.540 And this changes the idea of our morality in a way.

00:07:02.300 So we've had a war on the imagination where the sacred body of the goddess was evil.

00:07:09.880 And we're trying to say, no, it's sacred.

00:07:12.300 So instead of demonizing the female, we're sanctifying it.

00:07:16.380 And that is a huge shift in terms of an image.

00:07:19.580 That is a war on the imagination because sacred images come from the deepest, most transformative parts of ourselves that have a bridge between the inner and the outer.

00:07:30.340 But, you know, when we're just bombarded with superficial images in our virtual world, then we're very disconnected and fragmented.

00:07:38.500 And also one of the strongest cosmological images now is the war god.

00:07:47.660 It's God the father.

00:07:48.680 so this is this is an image that needs to be dethroned with the sanctity of all of life which

00:07:55.820 is the great mother and is this why you focused on art and artists in your tv show i did because

00:08:04.200 what could be more fun art you know and creativity so that's that's all i'm saying is

00:08:10.680 you know the oppression starts on many different levels yes there's all these economic systems but

00:08:17.280 All these things are reinforced in that that's why we need the image of the goddess, is to sanctify ourselves on every level.

00:08:28.620 Now, obviously, the idea of the goddess as a visual concept is up for an artist's interpretation.

00:08:38.980 But there's one specific thing that you've written a lot about.

00:08:41.620 I have your book in front of me, which is the Sheila Nagig.

00:08:43.800 can you give like sort of a uh you said you apologize for being long-winded before i prefer

00:08:50.060 long-winded so can you can you give me a long-winded explanation of what a sheila nagig

00:08:56.900 is for our listeners who have never heard this sheila nagigs and you can google them and see

00:09:02.680 many many images of them which is new now you know in in the um electronic world that we're in

00:09:09.400 And sheility gigs are images of supernatural females exposing their vulvas on medieval Christian churches between the 12th and 17th century churches in the British Isles and Ireland. 0.91

00:09:25.300 And they are ferocious figures with huge capacious vulvas that they're pulling open their vulva lips and they're usually centered in the body of a hag. 0.93

00:09:36.960 So what are these images doing of this ferocious, often bald, hag, desiccated body with a huge, ripe vulva exposing their vulvas on these churches? 0.99

00:09:51.840 What are they doing there? 0.93

00:09:52.940 So when I first saw the image in the 80s, I was mesmerized by it because the beauty and power of that image. So that became a sacred pleasure for me to research the Sheilas and to travel all over Ireland and the British Isles and Scotland and Wales to walk the ground that they were created on.

00:10:15.700 and to um i don't want to say make sense but to let the image uh penetrate to me where and take me

00:10:27.280 where no words could take me to a feeling level because the sheilas again are a sacred image

00:10:33.720 and they're what do i want to say they're symbols of what you know they're images of life and death

00:10:41.380 death wielder life giver what is this image what does she represent how does it make me feel why

00:10:47.560 did these people put them up there so that was what my book is about and you you go from this

00:10:53.820 original I don't want to say original because who knows where you know we we both are familiar with

00:10:59.020 Maria Gambutas and and paleolithic you know vulva shapes in art but I'll say original because this

00:11:06.720 is our jumping off point. You go from this original 12th century and then into, there's a

00:11:11.920 picture here of a 17th century Bimson Temple display figure that is very, very reminiscent

00:11:20.320 of the Shilin-Nagig in Kathmandu. And then later in the book, you also include women in vulva

00:11:29.620 costumes at women's marches so how do you see the world reflecting these these images is this all

00:11:38.860 part of this great goddess awakening that we're searching for i just want to comment what you

00:11:46.280 were talking about is code pink women for peace in the 19 2012 republican convention they dressed

00:11:54.220 in vulva costumes and said read my lips and the war on women so it was vulva theater it it's just

00:12:01.900 so delightful and and the police stopped and had their pictures taken with these women anyway i

00:12:09.040 just love that but to step back what what i'm saying um my original title for my book was in

00:12:16.300 pursuit of an image but the publishers changed that what i'm saying is sacred display of the

00:12:22.960 vulva is a universal archetype it's a pattern of energy steep in our psyche and to me it's the

00:12:29.580 cosmological foundation of the human imagination so i started with the image of the sheilas which

00:12:35.280 are medieval european figures and i traced them back through celtic goddesses through

00:12:41.040 classical goddesses like balbo and meduza back to the neolithic frog goddess and then back to

00:12:48.760 the Paleolithic caves, the origins of European art and religion. I'm not saying that there

00:12:55.820 aren't symbolic imagery going further back, but this was a concentrated explosion of the

00:13:01.500 human imagination. And one of the most predominant images in the caves were incised vulvas. So

00:13:08.340 it took me back to these roots and I fell in love with the Paleolithic caves. So I was

00:13:18.760 Then I started to look at it. If it's an archetype, then it's something in every human psyche. And then I looked at it worldwide, all over the world. Kali is a display figure, really. There's figures in Oceania, in Africa, in South America, North America.

00:13:37.040 So I started to see the universal aspect of the sacredness of the displayed vulva.

00:13:43.000 And to me, it's just one of my later talks that have come out of my book.

00:13:47.380 The icon of the vulva is a basis of civilization.

00:13:51.260 How's that for a cosmological image?

00:13:53.600 Build a culture around that.

00:13:56.600 So that's where it all led.

00:14:00.240 And that's where it is now.

00:14:01.320 And I think that's part of the zeitgeist of now is that because you were asking me before how I got involved with the goddess or how it came to me, I just was tuned into the zeitgeist.

00:14:13.160 It was all rising up. 0.99

00:14:14.620 And now we have words like vulva and vagina and pussy coming, you know, and reclaiming those words. 0.99

00:14:21.300 And so we have that all part of the spirit of our times. 0.99

00:14:24.020 And what I really want women to know is that there's a tremendous natural history that's available to them. And for me, that's why I think my book came out at this perfect time, that what is the quintessential image of the power of the goddess?

00:14:40.460 It's the vulva, so that we have a symbol to hold on to, to know the greatness and vastness and depth of our natural sacred history, our true heritage.

00:14:56.940 I want to bring up another sort of contemporary example.

00:15:00.680 I'm going to read you a little bit of an article from just this year, January of this year.

00:15:05.680 a 33 meter you probably heard about this star a 33 meter reinforced concrete vulva has sparked

00:15:14.780 a backlash in brazil with supporters of the country's far right president clashing with

00:15:19.380 left-wing art admirers over the installation the handmade sculpture entitled diva was unveiled by

00:15:26.260 visual artist julia notari on saturday at a rural park on the grounds of a former sugar mill so on

00:15:32.200 In a Facebook post, Notari said the Scarlet Hillside vulva was, quote, intended to question the relationship between nature and culture in our phallocentric and anthropocentric Western society and provoke debate over the problematization of gender.

00:15:51.640 Now, I found this particularly interesting, especially knowing that I was going to be talking to you, that this backlash happened because I personally grew up near the CN Tower in Toronto, which is one of the more obviously phallic landmarks in Canada.

00:16:13.820 I mean, if you look at the CN Tower, it has a shaft and a head. It really is a giant penis in the centre of Toronto. So, I mean, I wonder if you can get into like being surrounded by these phallic structures, not recognising them to be phallic, and then demonising these sort of vulvic structures. 0.95

00:16:34.920 well i think we know they're phallic you know a lot goes on beneath the surface and whether we

00:16:44.100 actually articulate that as phallic i think our bodies know and our unconscious knows

00:16:49.000 what the score is okay we know what the score is and i just think it's part of the zeitgeist of

00:16:58.320 our times to have these other forces coming up as i said the return of the goddess because

00:17:06.060 we need her for our survival like i said earth or the life force itself is returning us and

00:17:12.620 i've seen that um piece in brazil and it's fantastic a big red bulb and she had men and

00:17:19.880 women were working on that it is it is a striking original piece and so I think that patriarchy

00:17:29.700 cast a spell on us and we're still just popping the bubbles of that spell and and coming to realize

00:17:36.940 what the toxic soup that we've been living in and we're we're we're waking up you know Adrian

00:17:43.920 rich had a essay when we dead awaken you know we're waking up to it i think i think in many

00:17:50.440 ways women know the score and they're becoming more aware of it yeah and i mean the the agency

00:18:00.320 sort of has to come because i mean as of you know a hundred years ago women weren't allowed to own

00:18:07.120 property weren't allowed to vote or vote or even you know a woman i don't in canada i think a woman

00:18:13.460 couldn't get a credit card in her in her own name until the 70s I'll double check that but 0.94

00:18:18.360 later than that yeah yeah yeah so now that women are allowed to own things and make things I think 0.99

00:18:26.980 it's inevitable that we're going to be seeing uh something something coming up that's you know 0.56

00:18:34.900 in opposition to this sort of phallic landscape that patriarchy has created yeah and I was just

00:18:41.520 reading the other day because of that you know centenary of the hundred years of us voting in

00:18:46.940 the 19th getting the vote in the 1920s which women fought for endless ceaseless struggle to get that

00:18:54.700 so then they started passing other laws like women couldn't go in certain places or 1.00

00:18:59.880 you know there were many things they couldn't do unless they were married so 1.00

00:19:03.860 and again it was the second wave of feminism with the feminist mystique and other forces that 1.00

00:19:10.100 happened in in the 60s now of course we have the first woman vice president first black asian woman

00:19:16.140 black president so things are things are changing but of course there's such a backlash like um when

00:19:26.360 we had the first black president so then we have this backlash of uh all this white supremacy so 0.69

00:19:33.260 Yeah. But, you know, when I think of the pandemic, it shows the connectedness of us all.

00:19:40.760 And it shows what a completely unstable system, patriarchy is, that it shows that these social systems can't really handle things.

00:19:48.980 I mean, all this violence and wars and gun manufacturers and assault on Mother Earth.

00:19:54.560 It shows that the way we're living can't sustain itself.

00:19:58.080 And it shows how connected we all are.

00:20:00.700 And that is one of the missing values, of course, of patriarchy is the web of life and the sense of connectedness.

00:20:08.880 And if we're all children of the great mother, then we all belong here and have the right to our own human parcel of life.

00:20:19.480 A human parcel of life. What does your human parcel of life look like right now?

00:20:24.620 Well, I'm sitting here looking at the screen.

00:20:27.640 as most of us are i'm looking at the candles of all the candle i have

00:20:34.440 that i got from glastonbury goddess conference last summer where i gave a talk

00:20:38.960 i'm looking at my books i'm sitting in my studio is that what you mean physically right now that's

00:20:47.020 where i am or do you mean what's my life like now i mean both everything well you know as an

00:20:55.800 introvert who's very happy to be in her room in some ways I was the pandemic wasn't so hard for me

00:21:02.520 except for the fear and missing my friends and the suffering of my fellow human beings

00:21:09.320 in terms of deaths in terms of sickness and in terms of economic fragility and and the terror

00:21:18.800 of not having a place to live.

00:21:21.920 So I'm looking to hope, of course, that things get better.

00:21:31.380 I mean, I'm very happy, of course, that Trump lost the election.

00:21:36.960 And I am teaching my classes.

00:21:38.800 I teach literature classes.

00:21:39.980 I'm teaching my classes all online.

00:21:43.100 And I'm doing my creative work.

00:21:46.520 And, you know, spring is coming. Spring is tomorrow. My coven will be meeting via Zoom. We'll have our annual, you know, we'll have our spring ritual, our spring equinox ritual on Sunday.

00:22:01.320 And can you tell me more about your coven and what your practice looks like within that coven?

00:22:06.880 Well, our coven is Nemesis. We picked a goddess, you know, not Aphrodite frolicking through the sward, but not that I'm against love or frolicking through the sward.

00:22:18.440 But Nemesis began in the 80s, and we got together, all the women in the coven are artists, and we, I think one of the wondrous things about Nemesis is that we've endured to be together through all of that.

00:22:39.480 And through the tinctures of time, through births, deaths, marriages, art projects, all kinds of ceremonies that we mark the passage of our lives and also, of course, connected to the wheel of the year.

00:23:00.220 the thing is if you're in a circle and of course i'm never against anybody being a

00:23:05.540 solitary practitioner being a solitary type myself but there's a power in the circle

00:23:11.980 of course it's really fundamentally changed my life to have a circle that you can draw on the

00:23:18.280 love and power of that it's a very um stabilizing and empowering force

00:23:27.240 so we've been together a long time and gone through a lot of things like the woman who

00:23:33.840 helped with all the illustrations of my book ruth ann anderson she's my coven mate and as i said

00:23:38.780 we're all artists and creative people and it's it's one of the greatest forces in my life

00:23:46.680 and the fact that we've endured you know two of our coven mates have died we've had

00:23:52.360 other people come in so it's all part of the ever-changing life force yeah and i love this

00:24:02.780 idea of a coven as being a place where you can draw power yes you can draw on the love and power

00:24:08.460 of the circle so i mean that's what the consciousness raising uh circles were sitting

00:24:14.740 in a circle and talking there's nothing more powerful than that that's all you need is to sit

00:24:19.780 in a circle light a candle be quiet talk yeah we talk obviously this is a podcast so we we talk a

00:24:29.920 lot about that sort of the healing art of telling your story and listening to other people's stories

00:24:35.960 and how like you say just being in a circle whether it's digital virtual or or in person

00:24:41.620 And there's very much a healing and a resistance involved there.

00:24:48.600 Yes. Yes. And then, you know, you're dealing with other human beings.

00:24:51.860 And of course, we've been together a long time.

00:24:54.740 In 1989, we were on the cover of the L.A. Weekly.

00:24:57.840 Do you know that publication?

00:24:59.680 I have heard of it for sure.

00:25:01.720 Really one of the biggest at that time underground newspapers.

00:25:04.220 And we were on the cover called The Witches Next Door.

00:25:07.900 Can you tell me again what year you said that was?

00:25:10.160 I need to look at that.

00:25:10.920 Is it 1988 or 1989?

00:25:14.520 Yeah, I'll find it.

00:25:16.660 Bless the internet.

00:25:17.920 God has blessed the internet.

00:25:19.220 I want to see that.

00:25:20.040 It's wonderful.

00:25:21.100 I mean, every light casts a shadow, but you can do so much research.

00:25:26.400 It's fantastic.

00:25:28.500 Yeah, it's amazing to me.

00:25:30.340 I still, you know, as someone who's been living, well, we've all been living with the internet

00:25:34.060 for the same amount of time, but you and I were lucky enough to sort of have a pre-internet

00:25:40.220 life and a post-internet life so we can really appreciate like we had to go digging through card

00:25:45.780 catalogs in we had to physically go to the library ask a librarian so much love for librarians out

00:25:53.260 there as always and that was the that was the only game in town for getting information and now i'm

00:25:59.780 still amazed every day that i can just go onto this little box in my house and have the world

00:26:05.420 Fantastic. You know, when I was doing my Shilinigig research, some of it was in the 1990s, and I had to go to the Royal Irish Academy, and I was connected to archaeologists because I was friends with Maria Gimbutas, but I had to fill out all these forms.

00:26:21.060 I mean, what I had to go through just to be able to go and do research in that library.

00:26:26.900 And I spent days Xeroxing journals of antiquarian, royal antiquarian journals that had all this information about the Sheilas in the 19th century when antiquarians were cataloging the Sheilina gigs.

00:26:42.940 now I can go because I'm a professor I can go to JSTOR and in one second have access to every one

00:26:51.780 of those journals yeah and I really just don't want our young listeners to take that for granted

00:26:57.420 like if you can keep the wonder and amazement of imagination every time you use the internet that

00:27:03.680 people like Star and I have then I think it's like waiting of course there's endless distractions

00:27:09.920 you know but everything has its pros and cons the light the shadow

00:27:14.220 so since we're talking about young witches can you tell me what you think is the next

00:27:22.040 step in serving the goddess in in the future as we go forward

00:27:27.520 well i don't know but i think just

00:27:34.180 continuing this awareness and this breaking through of of female sacred power i think

00:27:45.240 it's something that's happening i i think it's tuning in it's tuning into something that's

00:27:51.480 already there i mean the goddess has always been there she's just been suppressed or now she's

00:27:56.740 emerging to save life really i think to save the planet so i think it's just tuning in and i just

00:28:03.560 want women to know the immense natural heritage i mentioned this before the sacred powers of the

00:28:14.820 vulva and their body and that really it's one of the longest and most enduring images

00:28:20.180 the sacredness of the vulva and all all that that represents in terms of of life death and

00:28:28.500 a generation for women to know who and what they are and i think that that's going to be coming

00:28:35.640 more and more and more the sacredness of of who we are and or like i said the origins of art and

00:28:41.340 spirituality and that's why i think the symbol of the bulb is so immense again because the symbol

00:28:47.960 penetrates into our body and and takes us to the feeling nature of reality so i think

00:28:56.540 still working you know on all levels working to to quit having uh hideous poisons toxins sprayed

00:29:08.060 on our food i live in california and if you drive up the central valley all you see these huge

00:29:14.380 agribusinesses taking all the water and making food that's really inedible um so fighting for

00:29:23.140 for the reclamation of our planet on all levels i think i think that is something that is a

00:29:30.300 completely foremost and and having a vision of connection and the sanctity of all i mean i'm

00:29:40.260 hoping that we're on the cusp of a huge change a huge change in our political systems and

00:29:48.800 you know the the breaking down of corporate power which has become so good i mean

00:29:56.400 people didn't have that sense of the one percent now or the uh the oligarchy and i think things

00:30:05.340 are people are becoming more aware and maybe trump and all that was the last gasp of of

00:30:11.600 those political structures there's still a lot to do so that's what i would want to say is keep

00:30:16.460 fighting for life keep fighting for life and I really pleasure in life maybe fighting is too

00:30:25.660 militaristic but keep keep taking delight in life and serving life yeah I think there's there's

00:30:33.140 room enough in our universe for fighting and taking pleasure for sure yeah yeah I just again

00:30:41.140 And I want to thank you because, you know, I discovered your work as a result of the Missing Witches Project.

00:30:47.500 One of our taglines is, we go looking for the witches we've been missing.

00:30:51.900 Exactly.

00:30:52.920 And certainly, Stargoody, you were one of those and no longer missing.

00:30:58.160 I just really want to thank you for being a role model for what I think the Missing Witches Project is,

00:31:04.480 which is, again, like uncovering these histories that have been suppressed, not just, you know, forgotten,

00:31:10.760 but intentionally suppressed of course of course yeah so again I mean this is just me sort of

00:31:18.600 giving you gratitude um for for starting this work um do you know if there are any copies of

00:31:25.760 it ain't me babe on the internet I really don't know I mean I have old copies but I actually don't

00:31:32.580 know I mean they wrote a book there was a book on about uh radical newspapers of the 60s and 70s

00:31:41.660 and we're in that but go ahead that actually I should look at that too yeah we have the technology

00:31:49.980 to make these searches so much easier but and yet still we have to go hunting we have to go looking

00:31:55.580 to find these names you know in terms of our occult studies um Risa that's my podcasting partner and I

00:32:02.340 You know, we were much more likely to have heard about Alistair Crowley or Gerald Gardner.

00:32:08.420 And then to discover this sort of legion of women who had, you know, enhanced their work only to be given no credit for it.

00:32:19.040 Did you ever, like Dionne Fortune? 0.57

00:32:21.220 Yeah, she's, I have read some of her work and she is on my list for next season, in fact.

00:32:27.660 You have to read the novel Sea Priestess.

00:32:29.880 That's my favorite.

00:32:30.620 sea priestess i'm writing it down she did a you know she did occult books on uh the cabala and

00:32:38.160 different things and wrote about avalon but she also wrote these wonderful novels

00:32:42.180 and she lived in glastonbury and you said you were just there not just there i was gonna be

00:32:50.500 there but because of the pandemic it was all on zoom yeah do you um do you have any tours

00:32:57.740 planned for the future for hopefully when we're all vaccinated and free to roam well the place

00:33:03.160 that i really want to go is the paleolithic caves i want to go to south of france and spain because

00:33:10.120 i became mesmerized by the beauty and wonder of the caves that our ancestors how how 40 000 years

00:33:17.460 ago that they could write this do this not right but carve and make these this artistry and through

00:33:24.440 my connections in the goddess world I found a woman who wrote a book on the pit she would be

00:33:31.800 the perfect tour guide for me and I mean I couldn't stand if I went to a cave and some man said oh this

00:33:38.640 is about hunting magic we're in the womb of the goddess for goddess sake but that's my biggest

00:33:47.660 travel dream is to go to the paleolithic caves and be where they were our our ancestors

00:33:54.480 yeah because you you brought up something that that maria gimbuchas discussed um which is part 0.93

00:34:01.660 of that suppression was that these sort of like uterus you know triangular volvic forms were then 0.77

00:34:08.480 decided that they were uh ram's heads that they were they were war like you're saying like they

00:34:14.700 that they were these sort of masculinist symbols oh please um you know uh in some of the caves

00:34:23.920 there's images of the vulva and the uterus and there's um and the patriarchal interpretation

00:34:32.080 was oh look there was a there's a there's an arrow by it it's a weapon of war and what it was

00:34:38.900 was the sprouting new life because of course the vulva is regenerative and and this was a motif

00:34:46.120 that carried all the way through the neolithic and the paleolithic and the neolithic but again

00:34:50.780 you can't see it they can't see it because of that interpretation of everything is war war war

00:34:57.400 and that was the thing about maria that changed my life the first time i heard her talk in 1985

00:35:02.540 when she said we've lived in peace you know it's not an indelible quintessence of humanity

00:35:10.660 to be at war we had there were times we lived in peace so there's just so many things like in the

00:35:17.480 so that changed my life yeah the game gives you hope yeah and so validating to think like

00:35:24.120 you know it is possible it is possible maria taught me that that it was at least possible

00:35:30.660 to live and one other thing is sort of tangential but in doing my research um you know it's always

00:35:38.700 thought you see these pictures of the paleolithic leonardo painting all the cave paintings and

00:35:45.780 and it's thought because of some of the imprints of the hand that maybe really it was this was a

00:35:51.160 national geographic but maybe it's really women who did a lot of that artwork so you know it's

00:35:58.000 just we've been we're just been poisoned by the toxic spell of patriarchy that as i said is a

00:36:04.980 very violent unstable system and cannot stand i'm sure you've probably encountered a great

00:36:12.360 cosmic mother by monica show and barbara and one of the mind blowers in there for me and this is

00:36:18.620 me having been raised by a feminist mother as a feminist my whole life but um in that book there's

00:36:24.560 something along the lines of like of course women you know invented language you know if you think 0.81

00:36:30.500 of hunter and gatherer the hunters they had to be stealth they had to be quiet they would maybe point

00:36:34.720 but the gatherers had to say these berries made my family sick this you know there had to be 0.98

00:36:40.880 of course women invented language and that kind of blew my mind because of course we were not

00:36:46.600 taught that well right you know it's it's just so evil um i don't know if you know genevieve vaughn 0.96

00:36:56.300 her work about the gift economy and the sacred bonds of between mothers and children i mean

00:37:03.320 doesn't it make sense that women were communicating with their children in that intimate bond 0.51

00:37:09.700 let alone inventing agriculture and everything pottery yeah cooking food 1.00

00:37:16.880 of course that would be you know um language of course it would be um because that's the

00:37:28.160 gift of language is i mean you start with your mother yes and that voice exactly and we can

00:37:36.280 extend that idea to a goddess how whatever form she may take in our imaginations well you know

00:37:43.500 your mother is your first goddess i'm not saying mothers i'm not saying every mother is perfect but

00:37:50.280 god no we know that but mothering wherever you find it that nurturing yeah that's something for

00:37:59.060 me um as someone who is childless i don't like to use the word infertile because i think of my

00:38:05.500 fertility as being not solely linked to my reproductive abilities but yeah that you know

00:38:14.020 i can i can be a mother to anyone that i encounter that's right that's right and

00:38:21.680 you know there's a lot of people in the world we if you don't want to have children or if you can't

00:38:28.360 everybody should be free. Everybody should be free. Again, I want to thank you so much for

00:38:35.900 contributing to this awakening that you're describing. I think that it's not only

00:38:41.900 supernatural, it is down to the work that people like you and Marie Gimbutas and Monica Cho and

00:38:47.780 Mayumi Oda and all of these people have been doing for all of these years to make sure that these

00:38:54.440 images are no longer suppressed that they are a part of our zeitgeist I really just want to give

00:39:00.340 you so much gratitude thank you you can't see me but I'm I'm bowing thank you and I bow to you

00:39:09.000 star goody is there anything else you think our listeners like it's important for them to know

00:39:13.240 either about you or the goddess or or life in general before we wrap it up for today well I'm

00:39:19.580 You know, Sage, I just want women to know

00:39:22.420 the immense sacredness of their natural heritage.

00:39:27.540 It's tremendous. 1.00

00:39:31.160 And women need to know where they came from. 1.00

00:39:35.020 Women really need to know this, 1.00

00:39:37.540 have divine, sacred images of their body. 1.00

00:39:42.680 And that's the goddess. 1.00

00:39:44.700 The demeaning of women's bodies has, 0.71

00:39:47.180 and always has been a lie. 1.00

00:39:49.580 Right. Of course.

00:39:51.900 Yeah. Listeners, you are sacred.

00:39:55.180 Take it from Star Goody, the great sage.

00:39:59.200 The great reluctant sage.

00:40:05.080 Thank you again, Star. It's been an absolute joy talking with you.

00:40:09.040 And I hope that this is a relationship that we'll carry on.

00:40:12.340 Maybe we'll visit those caves in France together someday.

00:40:15.460 That sounds like a great delight to me.

00:40:19.580 thank you and if our listeners want to get in touch with you how can they buy your book how

00:40:25.440 can they support you go to www.stargoody.com that's 10 letters s-t-a-r-r-g-o-o-d-e stargoody.com

00:40:36.560 perfect my email's there and everything's there yeah and if you just want to check out um some

00:40:43.620 of Star's work. Again, thank you

00:40:45.740 Star for putting those episodes of

00:40:47.660 The Goddess in Art on YouTube

00:40:49.460 for us to enjoy for free.

00:40:51.720 And also, I really recommend listeners

00:40:53.520 that you pick up a copy of Sheila

00:40:55.340 Na Gig. That's three words.

00:40:57.920 Sheila Na Gig

00:40:59.340 by Star Goody. Thanks again, Star,

00:41:01.600 so much. My pleasure.

00:41:07.120 You must be a witch. 0.99

00:41:09.280 If you want to support the Missing Witches Project,

00:41:11.740 You can do so by buying our book, reviewing it on Amazon and Goodreads, using offer code

00:41:18.160 MissingWitches when you shop at Foxglove Farm, become a Patreon patron, or pick up some Missing

00:41:23.700 Witches merch at TeePublic.

Missing Witches - April 07, 2021

WF Starr Goode - We Are Waking Up...Popping The Bubble of Patriarchy's Spell

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