Having been someone who was part of this revolution, I still am not really sure I could call it a revolution when I think about pre-patriarchal times, about 5000 years ago when communities were based around the mother-child bond and the apprehension and experience of deity was of a great mother, the Goddess, or whatever you choose to call Her. Since humanity has lived longer in peace and woman-centered culture than we have lived in war, lies and male domination, I find it difficult to define what has been called a sexual revolution as a true revolution because I would need it to shatter the global confines of the patriarchal imprisonment women suffer daily, which it has not.

Every Friday afternoon from noon to one o' clock women in my community gather on the downtown street corners to stand in solidarity with Women in Black. Women in Black is a global movement of women who dress in black and stand in silent vigil to share the collective grief born of war, which is, of course, unspeakable.

For too long we have lived with a language that is inherently male biased which has shaped our collective human experience. Naming from an androcentric perspective has been disastrous for women in particular because in this language there is no word that women can claim as our own to describe ourselves. All words for women are in the shadow of the male, i.e., fe-male, wo-man, wo-men. We have been told that the name of our essential life force is "Eros"-the name of a phallic deity. We have lived with understanding the shadow as that which is split off from our conscious mind, named as such by a man, who no doubt has given the world valuable insights, but whose own sexism and racism have been nearly overlooked by the very field that embraces psychological healing.

Gender Equality in Matrilineal, Matrifocal and Matriarchal Societies

For many of us, death is something we would rather not think about. Why is this? Why do we not want to understand the deepest mystery of life? Why are we so afraid to die? These are some of the questions that beckoned me on a journey to learn about the true nature of death, resulting in a recently published book, Midwifing Death: Returning to the Arms of the Ancient Mother, weaving together knowledge about how our pre-patriarchal ancestors viewed life and death with modem stories telling how the sacred passage of death and dying can be midwifed in grace, love and beauty, which are all aspects of the sacred feminine in women's spirituality--the oldest spirituality on the planet.

I am deeply interested in the true origins and beginnings of the spiritual life of humankind. This interest has, over time, become a passion as I have expanded my awareness and understanding about our human story — most of which is not told in history books. As a long-time student of Goddess thealogy and spirituality, I have woven into the fabric of my life the inspirations and insights that have come from teachers, elders, and sister travelers who also share this same passion.

I am writing this on what our society calls Memorial Day. I watched a few minutes of a segment on a pbs station commemorating all the dead from all the wars. The segment I saw focused on an injured young man who survived a terrible head injury and his mother and sister who are his constant caretakers, their lives wrapped in grief, pain and self-sacrifice. This show seemed very, very weird indeed. Here were people performing, singing, speaking and doing dramatic readings to honor the dead who lost their lives in patriarchal wars. Most of the people who have died are young people.