Dearest readers,
A couple weeks ago, I published a post where I announced a desire to explore (with all of you) what the more relational way is and how we might usher it in. After several false starts for a follow-up post, I’m thrilled that what finally wanted to come through was an essay on the Divine Feminine.
I would like to take a moment to add a bit of context before diving into the essay, though. First, a brief caveat: I’m focusing on the Western traditions here, not because goddess traditions don’t flourish elsewhere (they do), but because this is the lineage that I’m downstream from. And when I use terms like the Divine Feminine or Divine Masculine, I’m not speaking about gender roles or human binaries, but mythic patterns that emerged within a specific structure of consciousness.
To make sense of where this post is going, I also want to name the framework I’m working within…
When I speak of “consciousness,” I’m not talking about human psychology or the thinking mind. I mean Consciousness as the ground of being—the living field from which everything arises and in which everything participates. In this view, consciousness isn’t something humans “have”; it’s something everything is. All beings, all matter, all experiences are expressions of this field. And when consciousness shifts, everything within it shifts. So when I refer to different structures of consciousness, I’m not describing human development so much as changes in the field itself, changes that ripple through every form, including the Divine. This is why, in my understanding, the Divine can change: because the Divine is consciousness unfolding through multiplicity.
With that foundation in place, here’s the heart of it:
Despite the term, the Divine Feminine isn’t just about women. To me, She is the principle of relationship itself. She is the connective tissue, the matrix. Just as importantly, the Divine Masculine is the principle of differentiation: the force that divides.
Together, they form one of the earliest mythic expressions of polarity. And understanding how they arose—and why She was exiled—is essential to understanding why the more relational way cannot unfold without Her return.
Big blessings and love to all of you,
Jenna 💖
For much of human history, the world was not experienced as divided.
It was not divided into spirit and matter. Not divided into sacred and mundane; or feminine and masculine. Not even divided into life and death in the way we understand it now.
Reality was not a collection of separate things, but a living whole, a vast field in which everything existed in relationship. Each being, each element, each event was not a fragment but a function of a greater unity. We can see this in the ancestral eight archetypes—Guardian, Genius, Sovereign, Procurer, Companion, Artist, Healer, Maven—all arising not as separate “selves,” but as functions woven into the greater whole.
Separation, as we now know it, was not the organizing principle.
In those early modes of consciousness, the Divine was not envisioned as something outside the world, ruling from above. The Divine was Life itself, the animating force within rivers, bodies, animals, stars, soil, ancestors, wind, etc. Not a distant deity. A living presence.
As consciousness then shifted into story and symbol—what some call the Mythic structure—polarities began to take shape.
This and that
us and them
self and other
light and dark
life and death
sky and earth.
And the Divine, too, began to differentiate:
some gods associated with land, birth, regeneration, sovereignty
others associated with sky, power, storm, rulership
Artist: Robyn Chance
These weren’t fixed traits, but more like mythic functions, and we could consider this the birthplace of what we now call the Divine Feminine and Divine Masculine.
The Divine Feminine in Mythic consciousness often appears as:
The Source—womb, waters, land (Tiamat, Nammu, Gaia, Nerthus)
The Sovereign—granting kingship and legitimacy (Elen, Danu, Isis)
The Weaver of Order (Ma’at, Sophia, Seshat, the Norns)
The Holder of Cycles—death, rebirth, seasons (Inanna, Isis, Demeter, Hel, Skadi, Cailleach)
The Relational Field—the connective ground
The Divine Masculine appears as:
Sky and Storm—lightning, weather, command (Yahweh, Zeus, Baal, Indra, Thor)
The King or Enforcer—law, rule, hierarchy (El, Marduk, Odin, The Dagda)
The Warrior (Ninurta, Ares, Montu, Tyr)
The Sun-force (Ra, Apollo, Shamash)
The Principle of Separation—individuation and boundaries
These polarities weren’t metaphysical absolutes. They were storytelling patterns; the language consciousness developed to explore the tension of polarity inside a still-connected world.
The Rise of the Mental Structure and the Exile of the Feminine
Then consciousness shifted again—gradually, unevenly, across millennia—into what philosopher Jean Gebser would call the Mental structure.
This shift brought extraordinary gifts: focus, rationality, the single-point “I,” analysis, logic, language, science.
And it came with a pattern: divide, categorize, separate, isolate.
The forest became trees.
The trees became species.
The species became individuals.
Matter became elements, elements became atoms, atoms became particles.
It was brilliant. So much of it a blessing. A beautiful, messy, sometimes heartbreaking, profoundly necessary blessing.
And it came at a great cost.
Because as consciousness sharpened into a spear, its upward motion pierced the relational web that had been the Feminine’s home.
In a world that organizes itself through hierarchy and singularity, there wasn’t room for two divinities. Only one principle could dominate. And what rose to ultimate power was the Divine Masculine.
The Feminine wasn’t just diminished.
She was systematically erased.
The Erasure of the Goddess
We find evidence of this erasure not only in myth but also in the archaeological record.
In Babylon, the storm god Marduk rises to power by slaying Tiamat, the primordial Mother, and cutting her body into pieces to form the world. The new cosmos is literally built on her dismemberment, a mythic template for order established through the conquest of the feminine.
In Greece, Zeus and the Olympians overthrow the Titans, many of whom were earth, sea, or cyclical beings (Rhea, Gaia, Tethys). Olympian order replaces older chthonic, feminine-coded powers with sky, lightning, and hierarchy.
In ancient Israel, we see the erasure overtly and physically. The goddess Asherah, once honored alongside Yahweh, was removed from the Temple, her image burned, her priestesses expelled, and her sacred groves cut down. Archaeology confirms both her widespread presence and her later suppression: hundreds of Judean pillar figurines depicting a domestic feminine deity have been uncovered, many found deliberately destroyed or defaced (especially heads or breasts removed). Taken together, the textual, archaeological, and material evidence tells a single story: she was central, and then she was removed.
With the rise of Christianity—especially once Rome embraced it—goddess temples were closed or destroyed. The enormous Temple of Artemis at Ephesus fell into ruin. Cults of Isis, Cybele, Demeter, and others were banned or absorbed into Marian devotion.
In Western Europe, we see the displacement of the Goddess. Archaeology and myth together show that earlier sovereignty and land goddesses—figures like Elen, Danu, Macha, Rhiannon, Freyja, and Frigg—were gradually rewritten through Romanization and later Christianization. Sacred groves were cut, wells and springs rededicated to male saints, and goddess festivals absorbed into the Christian calendar. Many goddesses were recast as saints (such as St. Brigid) or reframed as domestic spirits rather than divine powers. Even the Norns, once the weavers of fate, were demoted to witches or wandering spirits. Across Celtic and Norse regions alike, churches were often built atop goddess sites—springs, mounds, groves—quietly overwriting the relational, land-based feminine with a hierarchical, patriarchal sacred order.
As the Mental structure continued its surge, the Divine hardened into an unchanging, immutable force. Greek philosophy declared perfection to be motionless (Plato), God to be the “Unmoved Mover” (Aristotle). Early Christian theology declared divine immutability and impassibility, and embraced a God who cannot change, suffer, or be affected.
The Feminine, as the principle of change, embodiment, and relationality, was rendered impossible.
In spite of all of that, the Divine Feminine didn’t actually disappear.
Instead, She became all aspects of the Divine that were suppressed in order to allow the patriarchal Divine Masculine to rise to prominence.
Where He is immutable; She is everything changeable.
Where He is the single-point perspective; She is the awareness of the “between”.
Where He is division; She is relationship.
The more relational way cannot exist without Her because relationality itself is Her domain. She is the field of connection, the intelligence of between-ness, the container in which multiplicity becomes coherence.
How can we reconnect, remember and restore Her?
These are just a few of the simple practices I’ve been living…ways I’ve invited the Divine Feminine back into my world and let Her reshape how I relate, perceive, and move.
See if any of these call to you.
Choose the ones that tug at your sleeve.
Hold more than one truth at the same time.
How to practice:
The next time you feel conflicted—wanting two different things, or holding a desire and a fear—pause and say: “Both are true.”
Place one hand on each side of your ribcage and breathe until your body softens.
This trains your nervous system to hold paradox, which is the Feminine.
Root in the here-and-now while engaging the sacred.
If you’re used to praying “upward,” try praying downward.
Hold a stone. Sit with your back against a tree. Put your feet in water. Press your hands into the ground.
This shifts the Divine from only a distant masculine sky-being to also include a presence you can touch, smell, breathe, and lean against.
Engage the Hidden Realms as Part of Daily Life.
How to practice:
Choose one ordinary moment each day and invite the unseen to participate.
Examples:
When you light a candle, pause and say: “If there is wisdom here for me, I’m listening.”
When you pass a tree, greet the presence within it as if it knows you.
When you dream, write down one detail and ask, “Who is speaking to me through this?”
When you sit at your altar (or kitchen table!), place one object that feels alive and ask it what story it carries.
Engaging the hidden realms helps us remember that the visible and invisible are always in relationship.
Welcome cyclicality instead of forcing constancy.
How to practice:
Track your energy for one week. Notice when you’re rising, peaking, dipping, resting…all without judgment.
Then honor the dip. Cancel something if you can. Rest without making meaning out of it.
This is the Feminine’s rhythm: rest, rise, fall, return.
Reconnect with the land in small, daily ways.
How to practice:
Step outside and put your bare hand on bark.
Breathe with the wind for one minute.
Greet the morning sun.
Watch water move.
These are not “nature practices.” These are relational practices.
Listen for the ‘Between.’
How to practice:
When you’re with someone, pause for a moment and notice the space between you…the atmosphere, the subtle field, the feeling of connection or disconnection.
Respond to that, not just their words.
This builds relational perception, one of Her deepest gifts.
Include your body in every spiritual practice.
How to practice:
When you pray, breathe into your belly.
When you journal, notice your posture.
When you speak to your guides, feel your feet.
When you call on the Divine, invite your bones into the conversation.
The Feminine is not outside or above the body—She is the body.
WOW Jenna, the similarities between our two posts are amazing. And that we posted on the same day, clearly, we had the same transmissions moving in our bodies, psyche and being.
I loved this: “Where He is immutable; She is everything changeable. Where He is the single-point perspective; She is the awareness of the “between”. Where He is division; She is relationship.” These two together as the sacred dance, and synergy. Yet what we see in our culture is something else, a subdued feminine and a masculine dominator.
As I read further into Eisler’s book, she talks about the cycles. Where gynocentric focuses become more alive in the people, bringing with it more relationality, arts, and balance. Then when the androcentric people can’t handle it, we see more control, death and war. She sites many different time periods that this has happened. Many culminating in war. Fascinating to see all this. As well as what you site in your post.
We’ve got a lot to talk about!!! Love you dear friend!
So true. And I love the idea of the Divine Feminine as the missing key to a more relational ways of living. We worship the Greek Philosphers and it is Plato and Aristotle with their Hierarchy of life that puts trees at the bottom and places on men at the apex of the triangle with women a step below. But of course within that top trianle now resides competing hierarchy for men (races, physical appearance) and the ambition to reach 'the top.' Hve you see the rewrite of the Welsh Myth I postes. Like the novels, this reimagines the story from a pre-Christian perspective. When I was researching a bit, I found the definition of the name Ceridwen and it is reminiscent of her role as keeper of the cauldron of inspiration from the otherworld. She relates to the Irish Brigid (goddess) who managed to hold on to her meanings. As you know, I'm all in on thinking it's time to bring all the powers of divine feminine, holder of all manifestation, back into awareness.