The Venus of Willendorf is one of the earliest known examples of sculpture, dating from 30,000-25,000 BC. The figure, which is carved out of limestone, is only 11.25 cm (4.5 in) high, and was probably designed to be held in the hand. It is believed to be a fertility symbol, which explains the exaggerated female anatomy.

In the beginning, there was only formless chaos.... Then chaos settled into form, and that form was the huge Gaea, the deep-breasted one, the Earth. (Greece)

Women were the creators of the world, the Goddess birth givers, the inventors of positive/peaceful civilisation. In every culture, women invented and developed the skills that made survival of the early people possible, from cooking to basketry, gathering to agriculture, domestication of animals to home building. Women first fed themselves, their husbands and their children by identifying and seeking out wild plants for food and for medicines. In learning how to grow these plants women began agriculture. They developed early tools to make the farming easier, developed basketry and pottery to carry water and to store and cook their harvest in. Women tamed the young of wild animals for wool, milk, for pulling plows, carrying heavy objects and for protection, later using animal product for food, clothing and shelters. They developed the art of building structures in various forms - adobe, hides, wood, straw, brick - and the art of making clothes. Primary among their skills and inventions, women began the art and science of healing.

In the time of the early matriarchies, healing and religion were deeply connected and religion was female. Healing began with birth and the act of women giving birth was equated closely with the Goddess' act of creating the world. Every culture had its beginning-of-the-world stories, and the stories were invariable and inevitably birth stories. The Goddess of various an many names arose from chaos to create the earth and universe. From her womb, she formed or gave birth to every species of living thing:

Eurynome assumed the form of a dove and laid the Universal Egg on the waves of the sea. She instructed Ophion (the snake also born from her) to coil seven times around this egg until it hatched and split in two. Out tumbled all things that exist. (Greece)

Through these stories of birth/creation, women saw themselves as images of the birthing Goddess, and midwifery - a matter of species and individual survival - became the foundation of women's healing. Respect for the human mother and the birth process was a form of worshipping the all-creative Goddess, and the relationship of midwife to birthing woman was the first healing partnership.

Along with woman's ability to give birth is her role in nurturing, protecting and training children, and the next foundation of woman's healing was in the relationship of mother and child. Until this century, a child that could not be breast-fed died; if the mother was unable to nurse her new-born, a milk-nurse was found. The advent of baby bottles was a late one. Where the role of the midwife included care of the postpartum mother and her infant, healing extended from the birth itself to the assurance of the child's survival through the mother's nurturance.

In these ideas were the two primary healing roles: that of midwife to birthing woman and of mother to child. These early bases for all healing arts ensured survival of the tribe and species, and they were matriarchal in attitude. In the case of the midwife to the birthing woman, the midwife helped in the bringing forth of new life. The mother was under her direction but in essence did the work (labour) herself. The midwife, always female, perhaps had children of her own, and perhaps the woman now in labour had once been her midwife. The relationship was one of trust and equality, two women participating together to bring life into the world, two women whose roles could be reversed.

In the example of the relationship of mother to child, the mother nursed, nurtured, protected and trained her infant until the child grew up and became independent. In times ahead, when the mother grew old, the now-grown infant or another of her generation could be the one to take care of the ageing mother. Again, there was equality and trust in the mutual roles.

These were the beginning of healing and medicine: women's needs to care for each other in labour, childhood and old age, to support and maintain each other for the survival of the tribe and species. In medieval Norway, a woman could ask any woman who had already borne a child to help her in labour and delivery. The penalty for refusal of that request was death, so vital was this relationship. In the early Goddess matriarchies, where to give birth was to become a creation Goddess, such laws were unnecessary. After the child was born and the mother had recovered, the emphasis switched from pregnancy and delivery to keeping the child alive into adulthood. Women, as the caretakers of children, developed into midwifes and healers for their own survival, their children's, their husband's and for the tribe's survival.

Women observed menstrual/lunar cycles, and it's connection with fertility and control of conception; the Moon Goddess.

From these beginnings, with woman as earth and moon Goddess, came women's healing. As woman's knowledge grew and her civilisation developed, her knowledge of midwifery, physiology and the techniques of healing grew. The early midwife/healer had many roles and used the tools around her and her developing knowledge of them, passed from mother to daughter, of herbs, bodywork, gemstones, touch healing, nutrition etc. This was the beginning of science and medicine.

Then the matriarchies ended. We can trace the ending of matriarchy to Nordic, nomadic tribes from what are now Scandinavia and the Russian Steppes moving southward, beginning about 15000 years ago. These were patriarchal people. They moved south for unknown reasons, perhaps worsening climates, hunger, need for grazing lands. Theirs was a warlike culture using the wheel, chariot and domesticated horses, as well as spears and other weapons - and the weaponless and peaceful matriarchies could not withstand them. By 3000 BC these tribes took over, destroying earlier civilisations, submerging women and matriarchal cultures, and substituting their male gods for the Goddess. They moved as far south as India and central Africa and as far west as Ireland and Wales, leaving death, devastation and countless refugees behind them.

Women's wisdom was devalued. Creation was stripped of it's female roots, substituting Adam as the first male ancestor, created by a motherless god from dust. With the submergence of Goddess came the submergence of women as civilisers and healers.

Many women remembered the Goddess, however, and her worship went underground. The village midwife remained as the primary healer and caregiver of each region and she was often the village high priestess as well. The Goddess religion survived, hidden, despite devastating persecution from patriarchal tribes, governments and male religious forces. In the burning of the ancient matriarchal libraries before the tenth century, in the decline of the great African and Egyptian trading empires, in European witch burnings of the thirteenth through seventeenth centuries, and in the christianization of North and South America, much healing knowledge of all facets of women's civilisation was lost. But despite their persecution of women healers, early male doctors knew far less than women. Practical healing skills remained in women's hands for many more years. All the same, by the end of the Inquisition, with nine million women dead, male doctors took over their practices and the few women midwifes remaining in the eighteenth century were ridiculed and discredited for their knowledge. These early doctors continued to have less knowledge than the healers and far more failures. Unlike the women healers, their services were restricted to those who could afford to pay, leaving many without health care at all. This situation has remained almost unchanged, seen on a global scale, up to our time.

This could be understood as a very pessimistic point of view, but I see that, in spite of all the magnificent technology and medicine we have developed, human beings are sicker than ever. People don't die of old age; the die of sickness. To avoid misunderstanding, when I say "sickness" I am referring to both physical and psychological sicknesses, such as criminal behaviour, alcoholism, isolation, suicide, extreme individualism, greed, sexual perversity etc.etc.

I would have liked to be able to write about women's history of mysticism as well, but documents are all lost and the "Her-story" is scattered and poor.

I don't want to idealise old times, as I would not like to think of my future ancestors, being in such a pathetic situation themselves, idealising my time era. My personal opinion is that if many people have the habit of thinking about the present as "bad times", they will loose the hope and energy to make something good out of the future. If we think: "it's bad, the earth is polluted beyond our control and human beings are cruel and stupid, everything we do makes problems, wars and so on"; we are on dangerous grounds, because we in this way make it come true. People fulfil these thought-patterns by making more wars etc..

If more people would take responsibility for what is our real present situation, and see the many ways, we have to choose from, to make the future earth a beautiful exiting place to live in; think beautiful thoughts about our amazing blue and green planet; we would be able to "taste" the world in a new way.

God grant me
the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change
Courage to change the things I can
and the Wisdom to know the difference

Hjördís Brynja Mörtudóttir

Järna, January 1995
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