Goddess, Mother Earth, Spirit of She, Mother Nature, Gaia; these are just a few names we use to encompass the Divine in feminine form. Goddess exhibits all the qualities of love, passion, women-hood, care, healing, all the qualities of our own Divine Mother, She who nourishes us from the moment we are born to the moment we become one with Her again.

 

At the Temple we celebrate Goddess as the Divine Feminine, honouring the cycles of Nature, watching the changing of the seasons, seeing how we and Goddess change in them. Starting at Imbolc when the Maiden Goddess roams the land, to Yule when the old Bone and Stone Crone walks in the dreamland to rebirth. Changing from one season to the next moving from Maiden to Lover to Mother and to Crone. We come together as a community to share and create Her songs, write poems, create ceremonies and bring the Divine Feminine into our bodies, honouring the divine in all of us.

 

Since the beginning of our time, women and men have looked up to the moon (a symbol of Goddess) to bathe in Her silver radiance. In ancient times women were praised for their mysteries of life and death, being closely linked to the cycles of the earth. Venus statues like the Venus of Willendorf were a common sight across Europe. They knew a woman's body was Divine and cherished Her as Sacred. Goddess was connected to growth, harvest and abundance, praising Goddess to ensure a bountiful crop for the coming year. It is thought and believed that ancient as well as nomadic cultures followed a matriarchal society before the warring clans of the Iron Ages began. Temples were often womb-like caves where the women would go to honour their own moon-time together, passing on stories to the next generations, listening to the old ones as they shared their wisdom. Priestesses would voice the words of the Goddess as the Sacred Oracle. Shamankas (Female Shamen) would divine the natural world, working closely with the tribe.

 

Once the idea of territory came, the ways of Goddess left our world, matriarchal cultures soon became patriarchal ones, leading to warring clans, where Goddesses became symbolised and personified as in the Greek Goddesses. Eventually, the rise of Christianity came and the ways of old went underground or were totally destroyed.

 

Until now. Now Goddess Consciousness is re-emerging in our world thanks to the wonderful work of our foremothers like Kathy Jones, founder of the Glastonbury Goddess Temple and Creatrix of the Priestess of Avalon Training (for more information please visit our friend's page). Making way for new Priestesses and Priests of the Goddess, opening new doors and avenues for people to come back to the ways of old to celebrate Goddess, becoming aware of our own divinity and to become aware of the magic of our bodies.

 

With Goddess Consciousness returning to the world, many Pop-up Temples, conferences and events have been, and are being, created. Since 2013 the vision of a MotherWorld Society has been initiated, our Temple follows this idea of society, protecting women, men and children, listening to the voices of Mothers and Fathers, creating a better world for Mother Earth. For more information on the MotherWorld initiated by Priestesses and Priests of Avalon please visit Vision of the MotherWorld project.

 

Today our Temple is a gathering point where we can come together as a community of Goddess-loving people, to share our own stories of how we got to this point in time and celebrate the divine feminine together.

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