Paula Marvelly - Women of Wisdom

WOMEN of WISDOM

About the Author

Paula Marvelly was born in 1967 and educated at The City of London Freemens School, Ashtead Park, Surrey. She read English at Royal Holloway College, University of London, and European Studies at Selwyn College, University of Cambridge. Her first book, The Teachers of One: Conversations on the Nature of Non-Duality is a collection of interviews with some of the worlds foremost teachers of advaita Vedanta. She currently lives in the south of France.

The Journey of the Sacred Feminine

Through the Ages

PAULA MARVELLY

Acknowledgements

I have inadvertently plagiarized everything I have read and am therefore indebted to all the authors I have consulted. Nevertheless, it is vital that I acknowledge my unreserved gratitude to the following texts, which have formed the philosophical, literary and mythological foundations of this book:

History of Mysticism: The Unchanging Testament, S Abhayananda

An Anthology of Sacred Texts by and about Women, Serinity Young

Myth of the Goddess: Evolution of an Image, Anne Baring & Jules Cashford

My sincerest gratitude also goes to the following who have given me immeasurable love, support and guidance: my family Jean, Bert and Colin Marvelly; Michael Mann; Alan Jacobs; Anne Irwin; Will Rasmussen; Anne Corkhill; Stella Konsta; Claire Fuller; Robert Genower; and my English students at Hurtwood House. I would also like to express my thanks to all the publishers who have given permission to use quotations from their publications.

With regard to the text itself, I have decided to refrain from footnoting within the main body of the text, however, endnotes for all quotations can be found at the back of the book. A comprehensive bibliography is also included should the reader wish to investigate a topic further. I have also left out all diacritical marks on all foreign words, including proper names, to enable a smoother read.

For

Mum, Dad and Colin,

Elizabeth and Tommy

Contents

I, WOMAN, am that wonder-breathing rose That blossoms in the garden of the King.

In all the world there is no lovelier thing, And the learned stars no secret can disclose Deeper than mine that almost no one knows.

The perfume of my petals in the spring Is inspiration to all the birds that sing Of love, the spirits lyric unrepose.

Under my veil is hid the mystery Of unaccomplished eons, and my breath The Master-Lovers life replenisheth.

The mortal garment that is worn by me The loom of Time renews continually;

And when I die the universe knows death.

The Mystic Rose

Elsa Barker

Prologue

Let us then begin at the beginning, and remind ourselves of a few of the trite and primary facts which all practical persons agree to ignore. That beginning, for human thought, is, of course, the I, the Ego, the self-conscious subject which is writing this book, or the other self-conscious subject which is reading it; and which declares, in the teeth of all argument, I AM. Here is a point as to which we all feel quite sure. No metaphysician has yet shaken the ordinary individuals belief in his own existence. The uncertainties only begin for most of us when we ask what else is.

Evelyn Underhills words, in her classic text, Mysticism, immediately cut to the chase the only fact of which there can be absolutely no doubt is I AM. And as she also points towards, very few people truly know that I AM, owing to the veil of ignorance and illusion that separates humankind from his or her essential inner being.

There are, however, a number of people throughout the course of history who have tasted the joy of their immortal selves, the freedom of the immanent Source, the infinite bliss of I AM. And some of those have sought to explain this ineffable state. But because the indefinable defies definition, that is when the uncertainties begin

All religions and faiths contain an esoteric heart, a mystical belief that I AM is in fact synonymous with God. However, cultural differences have meant that the presentation of this fact is as diverse as there are waves on the sea. There is, however, a consensus of interpretation: that the unmanifest, the Absolute, the primal Source from which the universe came and will ultimately return, is perceived as masculine; and that the manifest, the created world, the dance and drama of daily life, is perceived as feminine. Needless to say, these are all concepts. But useful concepts to work with, until there is a complete understanding that God is in fact everything, the masculine and the feminine, and yet, at the same time, ultimately beyond both.

Through the millennia of time, attention has shifted its focus from the veneration of the immanent, feminine principle in the form of a Mother Goddess to the transcendent, masculine principle in the form of a Father God; from nature and her bounty to a sterile voice in the void. Moreover, qualities generally associated with the feminine intuition and emotion, passivity and chaos have been subsumed by those generally associated with the masculine reason and logic, activity and structure. Unfortunately this has resulted in the dominance of the masculine principle over the feminine and, inevitably, men over women. In practice, this has produced numerous misogynistic atrocities and the annihilation of womens human rights the world over.

In order for there to be any real sense of I AM, the eternal subject within all of us, free from dogma and prejudice, there has to be an abandonment of all analytical reasoning and objective knowledge. Only through the realm of direct experience and intuitive sensibility can there ever be a taste of the true Self. Many male mystics have pointed to this nondualist vision through their writings and example. Nevertheless, there have been many female mystics who have also alluded to that ineffable place. Indeed, the emotional and psychological disposition of women makes them aptly suited to lose themselves in the agonies and ecstasies of the mystical relationship between the individual soul and the divine Beloved merging through their mutual love into One. And it is their story that we are now going to follow in their exploration of the sacred feminine.

chapter one

Enheduanna

From the first native tribesman to Palaeolithic and Neolithic man all experienced life and the very universe itself as a personification of the Great Primordial Mother Goddess. Everything was seen as her manifestation: birds and beasts, mountains and meadows, rivers and seas. The changing seasons, experienced as both the abundance of the late-summer harvest and the devastation of winter storms, were aspects of her infinite expression. Artefacts discovered from prehistoric times, including statues of fertile goddesses and painted female images in caves and on vases and pots, confirm that the vision of the cosmos was seen as a revelation of the sacred feminine, a celebration of the manifested aspect of the One.

The changing faces of the moon also began to be associated with the life cycles of the Mother. Birth, transformation and death as well as the womans menstrual cycle were synonymous with the moons recurring phases waxing (the maiden), full (the pregnant mother) and waning (the old wise woman) which in turn represented the changing aspects of the phenomenal world. Moreover, the moons final phase of three days darkness, where its features are subsumed in shadow, symbolized the underlying constancy of consciousness, the omnipresent totality of the universe in which everything else was contained.