RECLAIMING THE GODDESS PART 2
Let’s examine four ways we might reclaim the worship of the Goddess in this blog post, based on how our ancestors worshipped her. Note that the paths I am describing are not mutually exclusive and indeed can be mutually reinforcing. For instance, worship of the Goddess might involve both a sacred grove and a pole, or the sacred sexual activities might be done, with accompanying ritual, in a sacred grove.
Asherah was worshipped, at least sometimes, in conjunction with YHVH as his consort. How do we know this? One piece of evidence is the inscription from the archaeological remains at place x. The inscription reads YHVH and his Goddess Asherah, The second piece of evidence is that Asherah poles were in the temple. We know this from the mention of their destruction in Kings over the battle of what would be normative Judaism. The third piece of evidence is the fact that there were weavers of sacred cloth for the Goddess in the Temple precinct. (Hammer for Kings). This amounts to compelling evidence that YHVH and the Goddess were worshipped as a couple, contrary to our idea of YHVH as supposedly non gendered or beyond gender.
I just read the chapter on Yihudim, the prayers for the reunification of the divine and his Shekhina in Rafael Patai’s The Hebrew Goddess. Though it is beyond the scope of this blog, the idea of a divine marriage between God and Goddess has an influential history even in Rabbinic Judaism.
Reclaiming the worship of the Goddess could begin with the worship of the divine couple. This also has implications for reclaiming sacred sex. I’m not suggesting orgies or the kind of festival that is referenced in Exodus where apparently people could sleep with others who weren’t their partners without any stigma (at least in theory). But there might be something about treating your partner as the Goddess or the God. This would have to undergo some kind of mutation for same sex couples.
The worship of the Goddess involved a wood pole as a representation of the Goddess. There’s a lot of ink on whether these poles were thought to be representations of the Goddess or the Goddess herself, but from the point of view of practice, I don’t think this is an important distinction. Worship of the Goddess involved these wooden poles.
Any reclaiming of Goddess worship could well begin with these poles, both in a public communal setting or in a domestic setting where some kind of Asherah pole on an altar makes sense.
The worship of the Goddess was done in bamot, high places and in sacred groves of trees. We don’t know what this worship consisted of, but an interested community could find/create some sacred space dedicated to the Goddess that incorporates sacred groves and high places or some kind of stage. I think particularly about beech of black walnut groves here in the mid-atlantic ecosystem. Both trees have secretions that discourage the growth of different species and they will often grow in circles. This seems like a perfect setting for worshipping the Goddess. This could also be used, with appropriate ritual, as a setting for sacred sex.
The Goddess was worshipped by offering cakes to the queen of heaven in her likeness. (Jeremiah 7:18 and 44:15-19). This seems like it might have been a form of domestic worship because of the quantity of molds found. We don’t know the rhythm of these offerings—was it only on certain occasions or was it more routine? We also don’t know what kind of blessings or requests were made.
But we can follow the traditional pattern of praise, requests and thanks. We would have to recreate molds, the sacred equivalent of cookie cutters. Then we can bake cakes and offer them to her, praising her, at a minimum for her role in creating the world and maintaining its fertility and then make requests. The nature of those requests will vary with how we view her sphere of influence. You don’t ask a divine being for help with rain to break a drought unless you think s/he has any ability to influence the weather, for instance.
Archaeological find of Yahweh and his Asherah