Pegi Eyers
 | Venus of Laussel You rise in my dreams, like the power of stone, breaking the glass door between wind and the body. You are the measurer: blood of my moons, lines of my years. A thread of breath connects me to time, wind in my blood, a thread to your womb, Thirteen short lines - You rise, then are gone >Patricia Monaghan< |
Magic happens in amazing ways. We cannot predict the time or the place, or the shape of the mystery or deity that enters our world. As a practicing Animist, I have often experienced deeply personal messages and affinities out on the land, such as the appearance and timing of phenomena like a rainbow, the cawing of a raven, the patterns etched in sand, or the visitation of a snake. For me, having a deep companionship with wild nature is the very essence of animist knowing, and I continue to see, feel, sense, observe and communicate with other presences in Earth Community - creatures, beings, elements, plant allies and the archetypal animal spirits. I have also communed with inexplicable events and earth spirits in the landscape that are firmly connected to local indigenous cosmologies. But until one beautiful warm summer day in 2011, awe-inspiring visitations from my Ancient European Ancestors were few and far between.
After a long hike through wild lands up from Stony Lake, Ontario, winding between dense forest, overgrown fields and outcroppings of rocky Canadian Shield, I was indulging in “earthing,” which is the practice of resting on the ground for the regenerative benefits to one's body, mind and soul. As I casually looked up to the sky from my wilderness meadow at the clouds billowing overhead, they coalesced into the exact shape and archetypal configuration of the "Venus of Willendorf," the well-known carved-stone figurine from an ancient matriarchal culture in Old Europe. With stunned disbelief I watched as every detail became clearer and clearer, and SHE, this magnificent inexplicable feminine presence, hung in the sky for many minutes before hazily drifting off into other shapes and forms, as clouds always do.
After a long hike through wild lands up from Stony Lake, Ontario, winding between dense forest, overgrown fields and outcroppings of rocky Canadian Shield, I was indulging in “earthing,” which is the practice of resting on the ground for the regenerative benefits to one's body, mind and soul. As I casually looked up to the sky from my wilderness meadow at the clouds billowing overhead, they coalesced into the exact shape and archetypal configuration of the "Venus of Willendorf," the well-known carved-stone figurine from an ancient matriarchal culture in Old Europe. With stunned disbelief I watched as every detail became clearer and clearer, and SHE, this magnificent inexplicable feminine presence, hung in the sky for many minutes before hazily drifting off into other shapes and forms, as clouds always do.
Digital re-creation of the Venus of Willendorf floating in the clouds
Humbled and shaken by this great visitation, to this day I am still learning to accept, and acquiesce to, the powerful consciousnesses that work through the natural world. Writing about this Great and Ancient Mother now, one of the primordial “Old Shes,” I still can’t discern the how or why of the Great Mystery, but hold this moment in my soul forever. I can see how human beings need to interpret and make associations with events that are unfathomable, to give our experiences individual purpose and meaning. What was my iconic “Venus” telling me? That every important cultural keystone connected to the land is stored forever in the body of the earth and the sky? That the spirits and ancestors will show themselves at the right time? That nature is a feminine force – ever loving and nurturing? That I am personally associated with cultures that honor the feminine? That the world right now has an urgent longing for the feminine? That I needed to recover the long-lost lifeways of my Ancestors, and find the trail that leads back to Her?
Found outside the Austrian village of Willendorf, this figurine is part of a wider neolithic tradition, and has been carbon-dated to 24,000 BCE. As modernists we can't know for certain if the culture included large rounded women, or if the artifact was sacred or just an everyday object, or if it was exclusive to either woman's or men's spirituality, or if it was portable, or part of a more extensive altar. Yet we can say with certainty that the neolithic ancestors of Old Europe held the procreative force of the feminine as sacred. The “Venus of Willendorf,” if not an actual representation of a living woman, is an expression of fertility and all the cyclic earth-emergent chthonic powers of fecundity and feminine nurture. We can only speculate on the particulars of a culture that held these grounded values, but what a wonderful collective that must have been! Rooted in the truth of life, and the patterns of nature reflected in the human form, this beautiful hand-held object far transcended the female “beauty ideal" that was later promoted in the western world.
Found outside the Austrian village of Willendorf, this figurine is part of a wider neolithic tradition, and has been carbon-dated to 24,000 BCE. As modernists we can't know for certain if the culture included large rounded women, or if the artifact was sacred or just an everyday object, or if it was exclusive to either woman's or men's spirituality, or if it was portable, or part of a more extensive altar. Yet we can say with certainty that the neolithic ancestors of Old Europe held the procreative force of the feminine as sacred. The “Venus of Willendorf,” if not an actual representation of a living woman, is an expression of fertility and all the cyclic earth-emergent chthonic powers of fecundity and feminine nurture. We can only speculate on the particulars of a culture that held these grounded values, but what a wonderful collective that must have been! Rooted in the truth of life, and the patterns of nature reflected in the human form, this beautiful hand-held object far transcended the female “beauty ideal" that was later promoted in the western world.
 | Red ochre had been applied to the carving, the ancient igneous pigment used worldwide to express the sanctity of feminine moonblood and the source of all life. To the ancient ones it was obvious that women, with their regenerative cycles, performed the same functions as the earth, which was the source of all nourishment, protection and procreative power. |
Once established, a connection to Earth Mother Magic can never be broken, and the deeper meaning in my own personal mythology continues to unfold. Around a year after this visitation, I was blessed to receive my DNA profile from Oxford Ancestors, which placed my motherline 32,000 years ago among the ancient cave-painting cultures in the valleys of France. I discovered that I am a member of the largest and most resilient Celtic group, the mtDNA-based Helena Clan, one of the world clans descended from “Mitochondrial Eve” as traced by Bryan Sykes in The Seven Daughters of Eve. Without a doubt, at some point in ancient history my neolithic clanmothers either created the small "Divine Feminine" figurines that were found all over Europe, or were honored for their fecundity, fertility and wisdom in this way by the tribe. To explore this amazing connection through space and time to my life today, is an extremely thrilling ongoing project.
| In the meantime, and as an affirmation of this exciting work, a dear friend arrived home from Europe last year with a gift in tow. From her extended holiday in France, she made a point of going on a day trip to Lascaux, to tour the beautiful natural landscape there and visit the replica cave and cultural centre. As I viewed her photos and listened to her thoughts on this sacred site so important to my own mythology, much to my astonishment she placed a Venus of Willendorf pendant in my hand, brought to me with care from my ancient neolithic homeland! |  |
And to deepen the magic even further, my dear friend lives within a crow's flight from the exact same wilderness meadow near the shores of Stony Lake, where the Venus of Willendorf had appeared to me in 2011. Earth Mother Magic indeed! Honoring the life force in creation and knowing that all beings are sacred is the core belief of matriarchal, indigenous and animist cultures, and it is our collective responsibility to support this interexistence with all life, with the highest respect and generosity of spirit.
REFERENCES
Her Words: An Anthology of Poetry About the Great Goddess edited by Burleigh Muten >link<
Venus of Willendorf by Dr. Bryan Zygmont Khan Academy >link<
Icons of the Matrix by Max Dashu >link<
Radical Doll Making from Willendorf to Today: The Relevance of an Ancient Tradition by Jude Lally >link<
The Seven Daughters of Eve: The Science that Reveals Our Genetic Ancestry by Bryan Sykes >link<
Lascaux: Movement, Space and Time by Norbert Aujoulat >link<
Cave of Forgotten Dreams A Film by Werner Herzog >link<
Excerpts originally published in Ancient Spirit Rising: Reclaiming Your Roots & Restoring Earth Community (Stone Circle Press, 2016)
Her Words: An Anthology of Poetry About the Great Goddess edited by Burleigh Muten >link<
Venus of Willendorf by Dr. Bryan Zygmont Khan Academy >link<
Icons of the Matrix by Max Dashu >link<
Radical Doll Making from Willendorf to Today: The Relevance of an Ancient Tradition by Jude Lally >link<
The Seven Daughters of Eve: The Science that Reveals Our Genetic Ancestry by Bryan Sykes >link<
Lascaux: Movement, Space and Time by Norbert Aujoulat >link<
Cave of Forgotten Dreams A Film by Werner Herzog >link<
Excerpts originally published in Ancient Spirit Rising: Reclaiming Your Roots & Restoring Earth Community (Stone Circle Press, 2016)
 | Pegi Eyers is the author of "Ancient Spirit Rising: Reclaiming Your Roots & Restoring Earth Community," a new book that explores strategies for intercultural competency, healing our relationships with Turtle Island First Nations, uncolonization, recovering an ecocentric worldview, rewilding, creating a sustainable future and reclaiming peaceful co-existence in Earth Community. |
