09/01/2026
"Throughout most of the world, there is archeological evidence of a period when Woman was venerated in several aspects, the primal one being maternal; when Goddess-worship prevailed, and when myths depicted strong and revered female figures. In the earliest artifacts we know, we encounter the female as primal power... They express an attitude toward the female charged with awareness of her intrinsic importance, her depth of meaning, her existence at the very center of what is necessary and sacred. She is beautiful in ways we have almost forgotten, or which have become defined as ugliness. Her body possesses mass, interior depth, inner rest, and balance. She is not smiling; her expression is inward-looking or ecstatic, and sometimes her eyeballs seem to burn through the air. If, as very often, there is a child at her breast, or on her lap, she is not absorbed in contemplation of him. She is not particularly young, or rather, she is absolutely without age. She is for-herself even when suckling an infant, even when, like the image of the Ephesian Diana, she appears as a cone of many breasts. Sometimes she is fanged, wielding a club, sometimes she is girdled by serpents; but even in her most benign aspect the ancient Goddess is not beckoning to her worshipers. She exists, not to cajole or reassure man, but to assert herself.”
-Adrienne Rich, Of Woman Born
Art by Debra Hall www.juniqe.com/uk/shop/goddess-art
