“Goddess Remembered” – A Cinematic Reflection

“Goddess Remembered”, part of the series, “Women in Spirituality” © 1989,
National Film Board of Canada
Produced by: Margaret Pettigrew
Directed by: Donna Read
Distributed by: Wellspring Media, Inc.

Wow, those hairstyles and those puffy sleeves! The 80s: I love them. Look at the difference that 20 years makes in social mores. Now, think about what 2,000 years, and 20,000 years, and going even further back can mean. This documentary pays homage to the goddess-worshiping religions of the ancient past. With its dinner format, I expected Judy Chicago to show up. It would have been great to see every woman (Starhawk, Merlin Stone, Jean Bolen and others) sitting in the shoes of a goddess. By 1979, Chicago had represented cutlery for 39 famous mythical and historical women throughout history. By 1989, “The Dinner Party” had been running for a decade. Seems like a serious omission to me, although I did appreciate the goddess statue as a focal point on the table.

The dinner theme of “Goddess Remembered” seemed appropriate, as historically it has been women who have grown, gathered, prepared and shared food, especially in a social setting. (I don’t see why it couldn’t have been both men and women who domesticated animals.) The viewer could see that these particular women are all highly intelligent “heavyweights” in the goddess stratosphere. And they haven’t been slacking off for the last 20 years.

Jean Shinoda Bolen is the woman who said that when she was giving birth she felt joined in time horizontally to every woman who ever was, and that “nothing had prepared me for this. It hurts!” Bolen is an author, Jungian analyst, and activist. She has written many books that feminists would be familiar with, including Crossing to Avalon: A Woman’s Quest for the Sacred Feminine, Goddesses in Everywoman: Powerful Archetypes for Women, and The Millionth Circle: How to Change Ourselves and the World. Her Millionth Circle, she explains, is a tool she uses as “an advocate for women’s circles with a sacred center as a means of reaching a critical mass tipping point to bring women’s wisdom into the world.”

Starhawk is also the author of many works celebrating the Goddess movement, including her latest, The Earth Path, which speaks to the root of our environmental destructiveness and tells readers how to reconnect with the Earth. She describes herself as “an activist and trainer for peace, the environment and global justice, a permaculture designer and teacher, a pagan and a witch.” Interestingly, she and Donna Read, the director of “Goddess Remembered,” have co-produced a documentary on the life of archaeologist Marija Gimbutas called “Signs Out of Time.”

Merlin Stone, a sculptor and professor of art history, became interested in archeology while studying ancient art. In 1976 he wrote a book called When God Was a Woman, which delves into matriarchal and matrilineal social structures that were repressed by Judaism and Christianity. His other book, Ancient Mirrors of Womanhood, (1990) is a collection of stories, myths, and prayers about the goddess.
Oh, to be a fly on the wall at a gathering of such powerful women. I would have liked to see the name and title of each woman, every time she appeared on screen; this would have been a good way for viewers to get acquainted with who these women are, but the credits didn’t roll until the end of the movie, which I found strange.

The women and Olympia Dukakis, the film’s narrator, discussed many diverse and interesting points. They discussed how the serpent was a symbol of healing and prophecy. They discussed Malta, the Greek island that is the oldest known repository of goddess culture. The people of Malta are now predominantly Catholic.

All the women seemed to share Luisa Teish’s point of view, who said that she had rejected the notion of the “Great Bearded White Man in the Sky”. She laughed, “I stayed with Mary!” She later also said something significant for all women: “I am an ancestor of tomorrow.”

Crete was mentioned as a place where people had studied astronomy, mapping the stars and keeping records. The women there could be sea captains and chariot drivers, if they so desired. The creation of art was highly valued, and in this peaceful society, no evidence of male/female inequality had been found. A personal mark has never been found on a work of art. Minoan Crete is the place where the cult of the goddess was intact for the longest time.

The Golden Age of Greece marked the beginning of the power of men and the end of women. The warrior cults came to the fore then and later, laying waste to Earth and exploiting its treasures. Greece once had beautiful stands of trees and vegetation. These were cut down to produce warships, and when the trees fall down; the sand takes over. The place once known as Eden is now a dry and desolate land.

The claim that Old Europe was female-centered, cooperative, and nonviolent seems to be a bone of contention (self-proclaimed feminist Cynthia Eller, among many others, makes a case against it).

The following is a recent review of “Goddess Remembered” that I found on the Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com):

Unsubstantiated claims abound…, May 10, 2007

Author: thorn101 from United States – (Charles Sheaffer)
This movie is full of blatant nonsense and pseudo-scientific nonsense. Several claims are made in the film that have no scientific or archaeological basis, and are mere assumptions or the result of faulty logic (and wishful thinking).

Claims such as (supposedly) that they worshiped the goddess Old Europe was an egalitarian society centered on women. It was cooperative, non-hierarchical and non-violent. This is not true, many fortified prehistoric settlements have been found in Europe indicating the presence of warfare.

David Anthony, an assistant professor of anthropology at Hartwick College in Oneonta, N.Y., said there is also evidence of weapons, including some used as symbols of status and of human sacrifice, hierarchy and social inequality. There is also no evidence that women played a central role, neither in the social structure nor in the religion of old Europe.

The Lengyel and Tiszapolgar cemeteries indicate that fighting, hunting, and trading were male activities, because men were buried with flint tools, weapons, animal bones, and copper tools. Pottery was probably made by women and used mainly by them in domestic activities. This is reflected in the pottery finds with female remains. Nor are domestic or wild animals associated with female burials.

Claims that satellite photographs have shown that the Neolithic Goddess monoliths “all stand on power lines that run through the earth” is pure pseudoscience. There are no such things as “power lines” that cross the earth. Furthermore, scholars are now discussing the identification of Neolithic megaliths with any so-called “Goddess” worship.

The film contains many more unsubstantiated claims.

Overall, this is a good movie to watch at a girls sleepover as you honor your inner goddess with copious amounts of chocolate. The reality is that this mockumentary has no place in women’s studies, anthropology or archaeology, and I am horrified to see that it is still taken so seriously.

Interesting, huh? It reminds me of an old quote from Shakespeare: “Man protests too much.” I know that neither he nor I were around 20,000 years ago, so I think his argument is moot.

I would say that the main theme of “Goddess Remembered” is how women and nature are one. “As a species, we don’t separate ourselves from nature,” is something Charlene Spretnak said, and I think she’s right. It really boils down to this equation:

Women = Nature (illustrated by caves, snakes, water, etc.)
Man against Nature (which pits man against woman)

Until Man honors and respects Nature and so Woman, our downward spiral into oblivion through war and Earth’s destruction, will carry us all down that swift and vengeful river together. And that would, in fact, be the end of his and her story.

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