Post by siaron on Mar 11, 2005 18:00:35 GMT -1
The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image"
I know, this isn't Brythonic, but it does give an interesting insight to the loss of the divine feminine and a fascinating theory as to why it occurred.
It argues that the divine feminine and overall reverance and respect for women was tied closely to cultures that had no written language. I think it is relevant to us in that the Celts maintained oral tradiiton much later than other cultures and culturally retained respect and rights for women and recognition of the divine feminine.
Here is an interesting take on the so-called Dark Ages:
"The Dark Ages was a black hole out from which not a single scientific, literary, or philosophical idea emerged. Without a written record, historians have had to piece together a sense of what life was like in the Dark Ages largely by inference and deduction. The diorama they have assembled is most unsettling. Barbarous practices, ignorance and superstition apparently ruled. In the words of Thomas Hobbes, life was 'nasty, brutish and short.'
One might expect that the strong subjugated the weak and that feminine values would have been suffocated in those churlish times. So, it's all the more remarkable that when literacy finally reilluminated (albeit dimly) the stage of history in the tenth century, poets, bards, jongleurs, and troubadours were singing the praises of womangood. From out of the pitch-black womb of the Dark Ages emerged the Age of Chivalry, in which the highest aspiration of a man was to protect and serve 'the fair sex'.
(Sic) There have been other turbulent times in Western history, but none which concern for women's welfare was such an abiding priority. Despite the extreme disorder and gloom of the period A.D. 500-1000, equality between the sexes reached near equilibrium. As historian Doris Stenton noted, "The evidence which has survived...indicates that women were more nearly equal companions of their husbands and brothers than at any other period before the modern age."
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Shlain is a surgeon, and bases his theories on neurology and brain hemisphere dominance.
It's a great read, and one I highly recommend.
Here is the ISBN: 0-14-019601-3
Bendithion,
Siaron
I know, this isn't Brythonic, but it does give an interesting insight to the loss of the divine feminine and a fascinating theory as to why it occurred.
It argues that the divine feminine and overall reverance and respect for women was tied closely to cultures that had no written language. I think it is relevant to us in that the Celts maintained oral tradiiton much later than other cultures and culturally retained respect and rights for women and recognition of the divine feminine.
Here is an interesting take on the so-called Dark Ages:
"The Dark Ages was a black hole out from which not a single scientific, literary, or philosophical idea emerged. Without a written record, historians have had to piece together a sense of what life was like in the Dark Ages largely by inference and deduction. The diorama they have assembled is most unsettling. Barbarous practices, ignorance and superstition apparently ruled. In the words of Thomas Hobbes, life was 'nasty, brutish and short.'
One might expect that the strong subjugated the weak and that feminine values would have been suffocated in those churlish times. So, it's all the more remarkable that when literacy finally reilluminated (albeit dimly) the stage of history in the tenth century, poets, bards, jongleurs, and troubadours were singing the praises of womangood. From out of the pitch-black womb of the Dark Ages emerged the Age of Chivalry, in which the highest aspiration of a man was to protect and serve 'the fair sex'.
(Sic) There have been other turbulent times in Western history, but none which concern for women's welfare was such an abiding priority. Despite the extreme disorder and gloom of the period A.D. 500-1000, equality between the sexes reached near equilibrium. As historian Doris Stenton noted, "The evidence which has survived...indicates that women were more nearly equal companions of their husbands and brothers than at any other period before the modern age."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Shlain is a surgeon, and bases his theories on neurology and brain hemisphere dominance.
It's a great read, and one I highly recommend.
Here is the ISBN: 0-14-019601-3
Bendithion,
Siaron