OVER 2,000 YEARS AGO, our planet experienced a "pole shift" not a magnetic pole shift, but one which had as powerful an influence on all of life on the planet: a shift in polarity from the Yin based Goddess traditions which had ruled for almost 35,000 years, to a new Yang oriented, patriarchal ascension.

Long before our current forms of Judeo-Christian, and Islamic religions prevailed, a more ancient belief swept the globe, known today as the Goddess tradition. In their original forms, even the Patriarchal religions of today had a deep and inextricable connection with the Goddess. In the first Sura of the Islamic Koran, the Fatiha, is a verse recited by millions of Muslims in their daily devotions, God is called Al Rahmin, the merciful and compassionate one. "Rahmin" is derived from the Arabic for "womb" or "matrix", reminding Muslims of the Feminine attributes of God. Ameratsu in Japan; Qwan Yin in China; Tara in Tibet; Shakti in India; The Shekhinah of the Kabbalah, Isis in Egypt, the Virgin Mary, Mary Magdalene, the Black Madonna of Christianity; Gaia in Greece and Rome, Spider Woman the Weaver in North America, all are the many and varied names representing aspects of the Sacred Feminine Goddess.

This Goddess tradition was the prevailing belief until the tide began to shift several thousand years ago, and a new energy began to sweep through the planet. A male-dominated religion began to overturn, suppress, and even obliterate the peaceful, earth-honoring Goddess traditions. Throughout the world, each country has its story of how their indigenous and nature-based cultures were replaced by more authority-driven societies as the scales began to tip globally favoring the Patriarchal values and way of life. As it did, the nature-based, communal, non-violent societies throughout the world were replaced by dominance-based patriarchal cultures. Concurrently, we begin to see the ascendancy of the male gods and deities - Zeus, Indra, Yahweh, and Thor deities, and a corresponding demotion or suppression of the Feminine. By the time of the Roman Catholic Church, nature-based worship had become a crime punishable by death. The texts of the world's religions were rewritten demeaning the Feminine, and even editing out references to a female God, in favor of a male God. This shift from the Goddess traditions honoring and revering women, the earth, intuition, saw the rise of new male-oriented deities and traditions honoring which ushered in a new era of power, newly created authority structures which affected all of the planet's religions, politics, economics and walks of life. It also affected our treatment and relationship to the earth (representing the Feminine as Mother).

This new power saw the Feminine, and consequently the Earth as "evil" by the new Church, and to be conquered and used to fulfill humanity's goals and ambitions by the ruling colonial governments. Women were treated in equal manner, with one in three being killed at the height of the witch-burning period in Europe. The results of this ascension of Patriarchy upon our planet have been a conquering, and almost virtual extinction of the indigenous people's of the earth, an annihilation of 99% of the species on the planet, and a virtual destruction of the ecosystems that have sustained us for over a million of years. Any examination of our planet reveals that these attitudes are at their zenith at this time in history.

Intuitively, these Goddess-oriented traditions predicted this "descent" or hiding of the Goddess. However, ancient prophecies also predicted a time in which the Sacred Feminine would re-emerge and restore our planet to health. From the Hopi to Greeks to Islam, all have foreseen a time when the energies of the Great Mother would flee, but then at a later time return upon the earth. In Japan, Amatarasu, the Feminine Light of the world, is said to descend into hiding until a later time when it was safe for Her to re-emerge to bring Her much needed light to the darkened planet. In the Jewish tradition, the Shekhinah is said to have fled the temple when destroyed and defiled, to return and bring peace and harmony back to the region at a later date. According to Greek mythology, in the winter of the earth's history the goddess Persephone is abducted by Hades, raped and taken into the underworld. She too returns at a later date to save her Mother from ruin. Prophecies predict that at the end of this era, it is the rebirth of the Feminine Principle that is needed to begin to heal the deserts of our planet and to put out the fires kindled by two thousand years of male Logos orientation.

We are in the midst of such times. As the Spirit of the Great Mother arises in the Earth, we each hold a piece of Her light and love within our hearts. The re-emergence of this energy of the Sacred Yin, so long suppressed, persecuted and abused, is an energy held deep within our hearts. Its re-emergence presents opportunities for us to heal deep planetary fears and traumas coming to the surface from past abuse and suppression of the Sacred Feminine that is held within the collective matrix of the planet. While this affects both men and women, since women hold a piece of this archetype of the Sacred Feminine, as they heal and release their own issues of this core energy of the Sacred Feminine in Her return, we help to anchor that energy on the planet. Women are the main repositories for this Yin energy for the planet today, and it is in and through women that this Sacred Feminine is coming back into power. Not power as we have been conditioned to know it, power "over" or power to control, but power which comes from the depths of our being, the power of simply BEING who we are in our fullest sense. By igniting the spark of this Yin energy within us, we begin to bloom into the true expression of our Power and Beauty as living embodiments of the Divine Feminine, helping to restore this depleted energy to the planet.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Christan Hummel is an internationally known seminar leader, and author of the best-selling DIY Space Clearing Kit. As a pioneer in earth energies, she has presented at feng shui, dowsing and kinesiology conferences around the world. She has been in communication with the realms of nature for over 25 years, and has established co-creative grassroots pollution clearing groups worldwide. For information go to: www.earthtransitions.com.